Dinner at El Sombrero

Sweetheart and I went out to dinner tonight with a couple of boys from the ward. The boys happen to be brothers, and just moved into the same neighborhood as I. We decided to go someplace on the island. We ended up at El Sombrero (the real name. Can you believe it? I'm giving a real name of a real place). Mexican food was sounding good, so I was thrilled. We were seated almost immediately, despite it clearly being the dinner rush. This was a good sign. We placed our orders fairly quickly, then commenced in waiting.

We waited for about 20 minutes when the waiter came over to tell us that our dinner would be out shortly. Perfect. 20 minutes is kind of on the long side, but we did appreciate him stopping by. About 10 minutes later he stopped by again, this time to tell us that "there was some technical difficulties with the printer. Your food will be right out." 10 minutes later we were toying with leaving. Finally, after a 45 minute wait our dinner showed up.

It was decent, but certainly not $15 good. I had ordered fajitas. When I got my dinner there were no tortillas to be seen. I asked the waiter about them, and he said they'd be right out. He left, but didn't return with my tortillas. A few minutes later he stopped by to ask how we liked everything. I told him that mine would probably be better with tortillas. Surprised, we went to the kitchen to remedy the situation. 5 minutes later someone else brought them out. Hopefully he knew at this point that he had blown his tip.

When the waiter came to drop our checks off he asked us if we were going to order dessert. You heard me, 'were we going to order,' not 'sorry for the wait, it's on the house, what would you like?'

We said no, and he left our check. Our full check. When he came by very shortly thereafter to pick up the payment I stopped him. "Um," I said as politely as I could muster, "we waited about 45 minutes for our food. Is there something you can do to help us out with the check?"

"Let me talk to the manager." He said, taking the ticket. There was lots of discussion on how we weren't surprised that he didn't discount it, and how he was probably hoping that we'd just pay the whole amount and leave. When he returned we were given a 10% discount. Tax. I asked him to split the check, and he left again with the check to split it. This time he returned, and only one of the checks had a discount. The others were full price. On this pass I pointed that out to him. He argued with me about it, then, I pulled out my inarguable source: the tickets. Notice, I told him, that the price is the same on both tickets, add in the tax, and that's the total, no discount.

He took the bills and left. Moments later there were three people hovering over the POS machine trying to figure it out. We finally got our discounts and paid our revised amount. On every check the waiter received a big fat '0' in the tip field.

As we walked to our car Sweetheart noticed that he was looking at our pay slips, and talking to the hostesses; probably completely livid that we stiffed him. The nerve we have!

Office Friend

As mentioned in the post right before this, I have a couple of friends in the office. This entry shall be about my favorite. We shall call him RC. Why 'RC'? 'Cause I'm having trouble coming up with something else.

RC is an awesome guy. He's hilarious, and slightly dirty, but in that way that you can't help buy laugh. Once we had a conversation about his laundry. He had a spot on his shirt and I asked him how he got it. He didn't know, so I suggested that maybe it was bleach. He assured me that he didn't own any bleach, as the majority of his clothes are dark. As it turns out, he told me, he uses laundry detergent specifically for black clothes. No bleach required. I asked him if he even owned anything white. He assured me that he did, because, "well, there are some things that are cheaper if you buy them white."

"Yeah, but some things don't need to stay white." I said, instantly knowing to what he was referring.

"And, those things aren't really white anymore. I gave up." Oddly the conversation wasn't awkward until he uttered his parting comment (which I can't remember for the life of me), which was slightly embarrassing.

He's like that. We can spend 10 minutes talking about his underwear with no hesitation or embarrassment, but then, he can say just the right thing, in just the right way that you can't help but be mildly scandalized. It's refreshing.

Here's a short funny one: yesterday I was chatting with ProjectManager when RC, his team mate, and their boss came up. "It's a 'gang bang'" he announced just low enough that I was the only one to hear.

"Excuse me?" I questioned, not pausing to mull over the notion of the 4 of us involved in such an act.

"I meant mentally. I don't know what you were thinking. Get your mind out of the gutter, dirty girl." Of course he meant mentally. Yeah, and I'm the queen of Spain.

Anyway, yeah... It's good to have a good friend. I'd like to start eating lunch with him, but he has a girl friend of a little over 1 1/2 years, so I hesitate to ask if he'd like to join me.

Feedback

Today was super crazy and busy and hectic and insane!!! Oh. My. Gosh.

To start off the day I had an unexpected conference call from 9 to 9:30. Mid-call WalksSoftly sent me an instant message wanting to know if I had been interviewed yesterday or the day before. I replied that yes, I had, yesterday.

He poked his head out of his office and wanted to talk to me. I indicated I was on the phone and would stop in as soon as it was over. I didn't have a chance. I had to run to another meeting. After that meeting I stopped in his office.

"How was your interview? What did he ask?" he wanted to know.

"I think I did really well." I replied, elaborating on the questions.

"Good, well as soon as I hear back from the interviewer we'll let you know." I was surprised, only one interview? I thought for sure there would be at least two more. I asked him about this. "No, only one. HR recommended that we do it as a formality." Wow. They were going to promote me sans interview loop! YES!!

He also took the opportunity to tell me about ProjectManager's email to him. WalksSoftly told me pretty much everything the email said. It was actually really hard to act as if this were the first time I was hearing this, and be flattered and embarrassed at the same time. I think I pulled it off.

Fast forward a few hours. I was sitting at my desk im'ing with one of my friends from work. Actually, he's probably my favorite person in the office. I really should have a good entry about him, this isn't the one, though. I have mentioned him previously in this post, but that's the only time. While thus engaged I got an im from WalksSoftly: "Congratulations Granola," it read, "you passed the interview, so I am informing my boss and HR.... You will be SDE-T I." (edited, of course, to reduce the chance that I am discovered.)

I quickly typed a message to my friend, "You wanna go get some 'coffee'?"
"Coffee? You mean hang out by the water cooler?"
"No, I mean I really want to talk to you. Not here, somewhere else."
"Let's go downstairs."
"Sounds good."
And over he came.

I held in the good news until we were on the escalator heading to our hide-out, then, just as I thought I was going to burst I told him all about the whole thing! It was wonderful! His reaction was perfectly ecstatic, but not too much so that it was awkward. Then, we sat in the lobby chatting for almost an hour about nothing. It was great fun. He also told me that he's thinking of leaving our team. I'd really hate to see him go. I know it sounds rather pathetic, but he is probably my closest office friend. It's nice to have a friend at work again. I mean, there are other people in the office with whom I'm friendly, there are even other people with whom I'd spend an hour chatting. But, there's something else about him — we just click in that way that you know you are going to be great friends. I'd hate to lose that just as I'm finding it. Finally, I decided that we needed to get back to work, and work we did. I didn't leave until a little after 6. Oh well.

Good Shtuff

This morning I was talking to ProjectManager about some stuff when he told me that he would forward me an email. I went back to my desk, and noticed I had an email from him. I opened it up and discovered it wasn't what I thought it was. Rather, it was an email on which I was bcc'ed. To whom was it sent? WalksSoftly, his boss, and a woman who is either his boss, or his peer, but over the development team with whom I am working. Either way, she is over that team, and gets tons of our communication. Contents of the email (since I know you're dying to know)? Well, it started out like this, "If I could say one word about Granola it would be 'TERRIFIC.'" It continued on this vein. Frankly, it was a glowing letter. I couldn't have asked for a nicer review. I'm not going to write it all here, because, well, I'm not a retard, and I'd hate for someone to find this-here blog and know it's me. But, yeah, wow. Unsolicited praise. W00T!

Later I had the interview I mentioned yesterday. I really feel like I nailed it! One huge plus what when he asked me a design question and I made the whole thing scalable without prompting. I think he was impressed with that decision. He did catch me in a couple of really simple mistakes, (incrementing i instead of j, for instance, or adding unnecessary rows to the table.) but I recovered from them quickly. At one point he asked me a question and I my answer was, "blah blah blah, but then I just added tons of extra data and couple of unnecessary columns to the table..." Mid-thought the solution suddenly occurred to me. Before I could say it, however, he corrected my statement, "You mean 'rows'?"

"Yeah, actually, I did. But, I lost track of what I was saying because I suddenly realized the correct solution." and, off I went. It was really a thing of beauty.

I will (hopefully) find out tomorrow how things went. Keep your fingers crossed for me!!

Reviews

Well, it's review season here at InternetCompany (I have mentioned that, haven't I? Oh, no, wait — I've been the absentee blogger as of late). This means things in my life have been, well, review-ish. Ok, not really, but I wanted to say that.

Last week ProjectManager told me to ask my boss to use him as one of my reviewers. Turns out we get to ask for reviewers only once a year, and this go 'round ain't that once a year. Too bad, too... you can't ask for a better reviewer than the one that offers!

Additionally, I was asked by my boss to review CubeBuddy (certainly a welcome, but daunting, task — exactly how does one say "ragingly incompetent" politely?), Prego (she'll be leaving once she has the kid, so the truly terrible name will work), my boss himself, and, naturally, myself. I was asked to send the review of my boss to his boss. Five minutes after this request my boss' boss sent me an email and asked me to review my boss, Sullen (yeah, uh, the only guy on my team), and LoudTalker. Now, that's everyone on my team: CubeBuddy, Prego, Sullen, LoudTalker, and WalksSoftly (my boss). Nice. That means, I got to write a review for every single person. Lovely. It took me forever, but I finally got them done today. I assume that each of my co-workers gets to write a review for me. Who knows.

For the record, I decided the best way to say "ragingly incompetent" is: "seems to be struggling", "perhaps additional training will aid in success" and "reassign more challenging/time consuming tasks to permit additional training". If he's not too daft he'll get my meaning.

What's more, the following happened: WalksSoftly's boss went into WalksSoftly's office (yes, I know it sounds like DancesWithWolves, but it was the best I could come up with) and closed the door. I know this because my cube is right outside his office. They chatted for a while, then his boss left. Minutes later the manager of one of the development teams we support entered said office and closed the door. They have a brief discussion before he left.

It was now 5 pm. I was working later than usual because I had to watch something happen on my computer. It was just watching and waiting. Thus, when the aforementioned manager walked over to me and asked, "Will that work for you?" I happened to be at probably my worst point for being approached by a manager, i.e. I was filing my nails while watching the latest Strong Bad email. Sweet.

"Will what work for me?"

"That time."

"Uh, what time?"

"2-2:45."

"When?"

"Tomorrow. Did you not get that email? My $%^&* computer hasn't been sending lately."

"Hang on, let me check my calendar. For what?"

"For an interview."

"Oh. Yeah. Sure! Where?"

"Um, let me check..." He returned to his desk and resent it.

By the time he returned I had an appointment invite. Yeah! An interview for tomorrow for the promotion I so deserve!

Oh yeah, and ProjectManager asked me if we were still in reviews, and when I said yes told me that he was going to send a note about me to WalksSoftly and his boss.

Yes. Yes! YESSS!

Questions

Last night MapGuy, Sweetheart, and I ended up at my house playing games. We decided to play the question game. It works like this: You ask a question, any question you want, and everyone answers it honestly. Pretty simple, but you learn a lot about other people. I happen to have a book of such questions, so we started there.

After a few rounds we were making up our own questions. Out of the blue MapGuy asked me what my ideal date was. I told him I'd love for a guy to take me to a museum or art gallery and just wander around, taking all the time in the world, discussing the art, and what it means to each of us. In my ideal date situation, time is of no importance, only the art. There is no rush, and no pressing need to see every piece in the place, just those which speak to us. He seemed very interested in my answer, though I'm not really sure why. Hopefully he passes that information on to someone who uses it wisely.

Toilet Paper

I was shopping with MapGuy and Sweetheart last night in preparation for today's potluck at church. While we were wandering through the grocery store MapGuy announced that he needed to get some TP. This was done whilst looking at the cheap brand of TP. I informed him that he was not allowed to buy cheap toilet paper. He asked why not, and I told him the TP rule, "Only the best for our butts!" He disagreed, and bought the cheapest brand in the store.

After grocery shopping we returned to my house for hot chocolate with ice cream (I got to watch...). He excused himself to the washroom and joined us a short time later.

Finally 3 am rolled around and we decided that they needed to go home. As we had carpooled I drove Sweetheart home, and MapGuy to his car. Being the nice girl I am I helped him move his groceries from my car to his. I reached for the bag containing the toilet paper, and he lunged to intercept. By the time he got there, however, I had noticed that one roll was missing from his package. I thought it was odd, but thought little of it, until he said, "You weren't supposed to see that."

immediately the light bulb over my head lit up and it occurred to me what he had done. That's correct, dear reader, MapGuy had swapped my Cottenella for his Kroger. It was war! I gave him a look, and exclaimed that I couldn't believe he would do that to me! Then I sent him on his way.

When I got home I immediately replaced his roll with my own.

This morning, I had revenge in my heart as I made my way to church. There was no way he was getting off this one easily.

Right after church, before the potluck, I sneaked outside and toilet papered his car (ps, it was lovely weather, no storm clouds in sight). Nanny (who had missed the whole event) was leaving when she noticed my masterpiece. She returned to ask if Sweetheart and I were responsible. I absolved Sweetheart of all blame as I explained my actions. "Ok," she replied, "I just wanted to make sure it was you guys' doing." "Yup. All me!" Then, she left, and we went back to our potluck.

After dinner Sweetheart, the bishop's wife, and I all went out to Sweetheart's car. The bishop's wife noticed MapGuy's car (how could she not?) and asked who's handiwork it was. I (proudly) took my credit, and asked her to keep it a secret. She agreed.

Sweetheart and I left for my house. MapGuy would not be joining us tonight, because he had home teaching and some other church stuff to do. After about 30 minutes my phone rang. Who was it? MapGuy, of course. He thanked me for the present and we chatted pleasantly about nothing for the next 15 minutes. We were both surprised, however, at how little toilet paper is actually in one roll. Who knew?

Restored Faith

It seems whenever Americans talk about ourselves we speak of how unfriendly and cold we are — especially those living in major cities. I have noticed that these observations are not entirely wrong.

This afternoon as I sat on the bus heading home we came to bus stop. Looking out the window I saw a blind woman holding a ziplock baggy. In the bag was a piece of paper that had our bus number printed on it in big, bold, letters. The driver opened the door and called out to her "550". "What?" she queried. "This is the 550." "Thanks," she replied as she felt her way onto the bus.

Before the door had even opened, however, a man who was sitting at the front of the bus stood up and moved to a less comfortable/convenient spot, leaving a very accessible seat for our newest passenger.

As she felt her way into the bus, I wondered how she was going to find her seat. I needn't have worried, for no sooner had the thought entered my mind, than the man who had moved spoke up, "First seat to your right," he directed. "Thank you." she replied, sitting.

No other words were spoken between the two. There didn't need to be. He wasn't looking to become her best friend, or gain anything from it. He was simply being polite.

City dwellers may not welcome all with open arms, but when the situation calls for it we can be down-right nice.

5 Minutes

My boss stopped by my desk yesterday afternoon and asked, "Do you have 5 minutes for me?"

"Sure," I replied, locking my computer and following him into his office. He offered me a seat, and as I sat down he closed the door. Never a good sign.

"So," he began, "we've been talking about your work and your performance..." I started getting a little worried, since he had just interrupted a rousing game of sudoku, but like I was going to 'fess up to that... Honestly, I don't know why I would be worried. So what I was playing a game. I work hard the majority of the time, everyone is entitled to a few minutes of not thinking about work. He continued, "And, I'd like to promote you." Uh, come again? Now, this is not an unwelcome event, neigh, this is a position I should have been hired into from the start. The surprise comes since I was pretty sure he had no clue about my performance, except what (little) I told him.

He told me that his boss (whom I have been working under directly for some months now) had recommended it, etc. That, honestly, made a lot more sense. Now, here's the kicker: I have to interview for the position. This means 4 hours of technical interviews, and I haven't been programming in a while. Given that this is a programming position, I had better brush up. The kicker on the kicker? Interviews have to be done by the end of this week, or I have to wait for the next promotion period, which is in six months.

Assuming all goes well, I should know before I go to London, and I'll start with my new title (and pay scale) October 1st. Here's hoping. I've got two days to prepare for my interviews! Ayyeeeee!!!!!

Why I'm Going to Hell: A Primer

After getting my nose pierced I noticed very few comments from those around me, especially in the Church. It seems that most people just don't really care about a simple, fairly discreet, nose ring. It's just not that big of a deal. I offer as evidence the fact that since said piercing I have held the following callings: Sunday School teacher (twice), Institute co-chair, and FHE co-chair. For the record, these are all considered "leadership" callings, with Sunday School teacher probably being the most high profile. I've also given numerous talks, etc. Only one time have I had a Bishop say anything about it. It was actually my old bishop from a ward I no longer attended. I ran into him one day and he said, simply, "You're already beautiful, you don't need that to make you more so." No reprimands, just a simple loving word of "hey, maybe you shouldn't have."

Fast forward almost a year (can you believe that I've had this thing for almost a full year?? Wow.) — last Monday night I was at FHE talking with a guy in the ward. Out of the blue he announced, "You have something in your nose." Given that he's a computer geek, and lacking in what one may call "social skills" I figured either he was just noticing the nose ring, or I had a booger going on. I opted for door number 2. I whipped at my nose and said, "thanks."

"No," he corrected, "I meant something shiny."

"Oh, that. Yeah," I said shrugging, "I've had that for almost a year. You haven't noticed it before?"

He started talking about how they're wrong, and how we (as Mormons) shouldn't have them, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Bored with that I stopped him, "There's no scriptural reference that talks, explicitly, about nose rings."

He muttered something about Isaiah, which I countered with, "he also talks about 'costly apparel,' so I guess we should all just wear rags? The point wasn't the piercings or the jewelry or the clothing, it was pride."

He tried to bring in President Hinkley's talk on the subject, to which I countered with the 'letter of the law' argument. It's not a very solid one, but for people who are more concerned about living the letter of the law it works flawlessly. He didn't really have any response to that, but he did sputter on about how I shouldn't have it.

Frankly, things were starting to get a little uncomfortable. Bored with being told that I am going to Hell because I didn't conform perfectly to his ideology I just said, "You know what, I've never been turned down for a temple recommend after getting this. So, I guess there we are." And that, as they say, was that.

You know, I wonder sometimes why people thing they can just tell others how they should live their lives. I don't know if he understood, finally, that my nose ring (and eventual salvation or damnation) are really none of his concern, but I hope so. When all is said and done, really, if my nose ring in the deal-breaker for getting into Heaven, I'm going to be awfully surprised. What it really boils down to is this: we all sin, we all struggle, there are (different) elements of the gospel that we each don't follow. Yeah, the thing I chose not to follow is staring everyone in the face, but big deal. I'm not coming to church pregnant, or with a tattoo. And, really, who are you to judge me anyway? I do my best not to judge you, extend a sister a little of the same courtesy, if you would be so kind.

Get A Life

Wow, it's amazing how much I slack on blogging once I get around to getting a life! Stuff has been going on, and tons worth writing about, but given that it's 12:50 in the morning, and I'm beat, it shall have to wait until another day. Good night, my pets. Good night.

Cello Teacher

Tonight my cello teacher and I pretty much decided to go our separate ways. His group has decided to start meeting on Wednesdays, which were pretty much the only days we could really meet up. Given that, and the fact that he lives 30 minutes away from me, we've decided to meet once more, and then be done with it, for the most part.

I think that's a pretty good idea. I'm glad he got me back into it, and has helped me fix a few things I really was struggling with. So, now, when I start up with a new teacher I'll be a little less retarded.

Movie and Conversation

After our camping trip Nanny had to work, so Sweetheart, MapGuy, and I decided to hang out. We went to dinner, and afterwards to Sweetheart's place where we watched a movie, and afterwards sat around and just talked. Finally around midnight we decided to call it a night. I drove MapGuy back to the church where we had left his car. We sat there and talked about his divorce, and the whole thing with ExOfNote. At 1:30 am the lights in front of the building suddenly went dark. He asked me, "Does that usually happen?" said I, "I wouldn't know. I'm not usually here at this hour!"

"Well," he announced, "I guess that's my cue." then he opened the door and got out. As an afterthought he leaned in the car and said, "Oh, and all of this — don't tell anyone, ok?"

"I wouldn't." I replied, assuring him that I considered this conversation private, and as such I wouldn't be telling anyone (namely, Nanny) about it. I think he was rather relieved.

What he doesn't realize is — I'm not going to be telling her about the hour and a half we spent chatting. Not because anything happened (because it certainly didn't), but because I think she would be hurt if I told her, and even more so when I didn't tell her details about our conversation. Luckily, she likes him too much, I don't think she can see past that. Well, that, and the fact that he's really not my type, and I am certainly not his.

Pit Spitting

MapGuy and I were being silly and spitting cherry pits during the camp out. We did it three times, and I beat him soundly the first two. The last time, he lucked out when his pit bounced one inch further up than mine! He was quite proud of that! How funny!

Camping

My ward went camping this weekend. We had so much fun! There really isn't much more to say about it than that.

Oh, but there is this boy (isn't there always) that I kind of like. We had a nice long talk Friday evening. I really wish I could think up some excuse to hang out with him, or invite him to do something with us, but I am struggling with that one. He seems like a really nice guy, and people seem to forget about him, since he's the ward clerk and spends so much time doing that stuff.

What Did She Do?

I was just complaining about CubeBuddy, when it occurred to me, I haven't filled you in on the latest.

When FrenchGuy left our team he had two things that we needed to take over. Twice a week a cron job is run for two countries: Canada and Japan. It was determined that I and CubeBuddy would take over the corresponding countries. This required two things: (1) Setting up our profiles on the correct machine so that we could actually run them; and (2) Changing over the owner to ourselves.

It seemed really straight forward, so I put it off for almost a month (we had to have it finished by the end of the month, and I waited until the last week, practically). When I finally got around to it, it ended up taking a bit more effort that I had originally believed. In total I probably spent a couple of hours one it. I sent a lot of emails to FrenchGuy, and we waded through some things, but in the end, I searched the company wiki and just figured it out. When I got everything running and set I let FrenchGuy and our boss know that I had taken care of it.

CubeBuddy, on the other hand, still hadn't even started.

FrenchGuy emailed her to remind her that she needed to take care of it. She asked me how long it had taken me to do it, and I told her that all the figuring it out had taken me about two hours. She asked (if you can believe it) if there was any "documentation" on how to do it. I told her no, just what I found in the wiki's. She asked if I was planning on writing any documentation (oh, this was in the middle of the height of my most recent stressful two months), to which I simply told her, no, I didn't have time. She asked if FrenchGuy was going to do it, and I told her probably not, since he was, by this point, officially not supporting us any longer. She complained and said that she would email our boss and ask him for the documentation, and explain that she couldn't do it because of the lack of documentation.

Now, you're probably wondering why I didn't just tell her how to do it, and save all the headache. Let me let you in on a little secret: solving people's problems just means that they keep coming to you to solve them, rather than figuring it out themselves. I figured, if she learns how to use the tools we have such as google and the internal wiki's then she's better off in the end.

Fast forward one month.

She still hasn't changed the stuff over to run in her name. Why not? No documentation. FrenchGuy keeps reminding her, and she keeps telling him she (a) doesn't have time; and (b) needs documentation. Yesterday the proverbial 'it' hit the fan. Japan broke, and we had to run it by hand. She couldn't do it, because she hadn't fixed her machine, and the guy who was trying to help her couldn't, because he had never had the need to set up what he needed in order to help her out. I tried to help her fix her computer so it would work, but I couldn't remember exactly how to do it, and, because time was of the essence, after letting her work on this for about two hours of this I offered to run it myself.

After that was all finished I returned to my desk, did 10 minutes of research and figured out exactly what she needed to do to fix things. 3 commands. That's all. Three.

I called her over to my desk, where I showed her how to do it, and she took copious notes. Later she typed it up, tossed it in a wiki and sent it around. Here's the ironic part: that's a one-time deal. She'll never have to do any of it ever again. Oy!

So, today, we were in team meeting with our boss (who has finally arrived from the UK). He asked what more we needed to make things run smoothly, to which she replied, "Documentation on how to fix things when they are broken." He asked if specific training would help. I couldn't let this go on, so I interjected my thoughts, "We don't need exact documentation on how to solve a given problem when it arises, since the problems seem to change. What we need is to be better able to research and figure out where the problems are, and how to solve them. I think that having specific documentation is just unnecessary effort." She didn't agree, and no one else said anything.

Later in the afternoon I ran into FrenchGuy. He thanked me for helping her solve her problem, and complained, "I think it was above her abilities." I think he's right. The most frustrating part is how it reflects on me. I know that sounds bad, but I really think that our boss can see past her incompetencies. I seriously hope that we can find a good sde-t who speaks Japanese soon, so that she can move on to somewhere else where she has better opportunities for success.

Have I mentioned that her soul qualification for my job is that she knows Japanese? Well, hot damn! I know English, and that's used in three countries, give me a raise!

Nemesis

Mid-gripe about the stellar incompetances that makes up CubeBuddy, Mumsy asked rhetorically (and sympathetically, I might add), "Why does it always seem that you have a PuppyDogAndBows in your life?"

The answer, Mumsy, is simple: All heroes need a nemesis. If CubeBuddy weren't it, I'd probably pick someone else about whom to gripe. It's life, and we need those people to laugh at and be frustrated by.

Terrorists or Conspiracy?

At moments like this, when no one actually dies and/or gets blown to smithereens, when one has to wonder: just how much do we trust our government? On the one hand, assuming this was a valid plot foiling, I'm extremely relieve that this horrible plot was thwarted. The very thought of the tremendous loss of life that would have occurred had these terrorists been successful at what they were attempting is humbling. I could have been on one of those planes, mine could have been one of the countless lives lost. If the British government did, in deed, frustrate an attack, then they have my adoration and great thanks. I don't even mind the machine guns reappearing in our airports, and the general feeling of martial law; and I'm inclined to be understanding and forgiving of the latest carry-on luggage restrictions.

Conversely, if this is the result of a scheme masterminded by the American and British governments to re-build support at home, to cause us to renew our faith, and once, again, support them in the unlawful searches and wire tapings, as well as the sundry of other violations of privacy and the forth amendment (see below) then, I would say, they have succeeded.

There are lots of people who are sitting on both sides of this one. Mumsy, even, is talking like a loyalist. Frankly, it surprised me when she told me that she really believed this one. Call me Thomas, but I've become jaded in my old age. It seems to me that both Blair and Bush need the support at home, and scaring us into submission worked once before. Plus, stock prices have been tanking, and everyone knows that war is good for the economy.

So, is this an Atta-boy for the Feds, or another conspiracy for the theorists? Clearly, I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if, in 20 years when they're in their history classes, my children don't learn about the scandals surrounding the numerous terrorist-frustrations of our present day.

As promised:

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Oh, Wow

I'm going back next year! The conference rocked my socks!

I ended up sharing the hotel room with FIVE other people. It was squishy, but actually not too bad. I had a bed, and my sleep schedule was a bit earlier than everyone else's. I hope next year I can share a room with the same guys. So, yeah.

I think next year I'll actually take a laptop. Which means one of two things: (1) I've got to get my POC laptop working, or (2) I've got to get a new laptop.

In other news, Nanny, Sweetheart and I are supposed to go bowling tonight, but it's getting awfully late, so I think I'm going to cancel and just go to bed.

Hang on...

...

Cancelled. Good night.

Con-fer-ence!

So, I'm going to this computer security conference this weekend. I'm so excited! I have every intention of staying up too late and getting up too early.

One potentially interesting bit: I'll be staying in a hotel room with two or three guys I don't know. What could go wrong? Actually, I feel pretty good about it. I think if I were the least bit worried I wouldn't stay with them. Correction, I know if I were the least bit worried things would be going down differently.

In other fun and exciting news: MyFormerBoss from BigNameCompany might be coming down with GoteeBoy. That will be so fun if they end up showing. I'm trying to talk MyFormerBoss into it. I think the chances are high that I might prevail. We'll see...

Sorry I haven't written in so long, things have been uber-busy at work, and not always in a good way.

I have cello lessons tonight, though, and I'm excited for that. Hopefully I won't get lost this week. Tragic, really.