"Walking through the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria with your fly undone is different. But it's not good." ~Legendary GM design chief Bill Mitchell

Saturday, November 26, 2005

Chinese Eats

There's so much good food around this town. It really amazes me sometimes. It's taken us a while but after some searching on the internet we found this article here. I didn't think I'd be finding a better recommendation any time soon so we went to check it out. The crab rangoons, lemon chicken and kung pao chicken all get 5 out of 5. I can't wait to go back to Full Kee and try something else! Absolute best chinese food I've ever had.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Holiday Traveling

Brilliant!!  I haven’t seen comedic timing this good since Rodney Dangerfield died!

Monday, November 21, 2005

Green-Eyed Monster

My envy of Danimal grows with every passing day.  His unbounded wealth haunts my dreams and pushes me to the brink of animal rage.  Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s possessions?  I think I shall.  I must have IT!

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Snack Food Revisited

Recall this post. I sent Kelly to the store for hamburger buns, and she finds Pocky. I've never even seen Pocky before except for that odd little quiz. My wife seems to have a radar for finding cute things to do. She just turns around and bam, finds the exact flavor (how many are there?) that supposedly coincides with my personality! Honestly they were pretty tasty and, deservedly so, didn't last long. Though the store only had chocolate and strawberry to choose from, I'm rather curious what Milk Pocky will taste like. Now that I know its safe to eat of course.

Birthdays

Danimal included one of these in his blog and I found what it said to be interesting. Not just because it's flattering, (how many horoscopes tell you you suck after all?) but because I'm currently in a position at work where there is the possibility of rapid growth and increased responsibility. The horoscope may be overly optimistic but I think it ties in interestingly with my present situation.


Your Birthdate: January 1

You are a natural born leader, even if those leadership talents haven't been developed yet.
You have the power and self confidence to succeed in life, and your power grows daily.
Besides power, you also have a great deal of creativity that enables you to innovate instead of fail.
You are a visionary, seeing the big picture instead of all of the trivial little details.

Your strength: Your supreme genius

Your weakness: Your inappropriate sensitivity

Your power color: Gold

Your power symbol: Star

Your power month: January

Sunny Weekends

Well things are looking up a bit. The weekend is here, it's hella sunny out and the temperature is suitable for a light jacket. Just how I like it. I went out for a night on the town last night. Didn't drink much, but I enjoyed a cigar and hit up no less than 4 hot spots. Plus I saw the Governor out at the Martini bar. I didn't think it was him, but Brendan shook his hand and proved me wrong.

I found someone who can restore the gas tank on my motorcycle for $130. It'll be painted primer and probably still have a visible dent or two, but as long is it's not going to explode or rust out again, that's money well spent. As far as work is concerned, I'm coping with the extra responsibility alright. The meeting up near DC went well on Friday. I've got two more to attend up there next week, we'll see how that goes. I'm actually going to be overnight right in the capital on Wednesday, so I think I'll have to call around and see if anyone is in the city and wants to go grab a beer.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Downward Spiral

So here's where I rant about the streak of bad luck that's been hitting all of a sudden. Tuesday morning I found out that my boss has been mobilized by the Army and worst case scenario is going to be that he leaves this Sunday. Everybody's freaked out, myself included. I mean it's not like he's easily replaceable. There isn't another person in our group that has the ability to step in and just take his place. He has too many balls in the air at any one time to just pass them along to someone else. All the project handoffs are going to be quick and messy. Something's going to fall through the cracks and I'm not looking forward to that. It's a logistical nightmare. I'm not even going to get into the fact that from now on I'm going to have extremely limited guidance on some very challenging projects that are coming up. Believe me, I'm stressed right now. I hate making mistakes and I'm a bit concerned that I'll wind up making more of them.

This isn't even touching on the fact that I consider him a good friend. He's been a fantastic manager and I can't help but feel whatever arrangement we're able to come up with to fill the gap until he returns from active service, is going to be sorely lacking. He's got a lot on his mind right now and I don't blame him if work isn't in the fore-front. He's got a young family and Sunday, when he's supposed to be leaving, is his daughter's birthday. That really sucks. The poor guy is scrambling right now and I feel pretty bad about that.

So we were dealing with that all yesterday. This morning I figured I'd get to work early and see what I could do to help. So I leave for work about 15 minutes before usual, pull out of the apartment complex and start booking it up the hill to the intersection. This morning, unlike most mornings, there was a cop car hidden at the top of the hill. And he clocked me going 49 in a 35. I blame VDOT because they build every road in the city as if it needs to be a 4 lane divided highway. I live on that road, it could have been a goddamn donkey-cart path and still done it's job effectively. How is someone not going to drive fast on that road when the only one like it back home was called I-95? Speed limits are all politics, I drive according to the conditions. And the conditions of that road were suitable for Indianapolis.

Back to the story. I got pulled over, and I was polite about it because I knew I had been speeding so I deserved to be given a ticket. The police officer was polite to me in turn. We bid each other good-day and went our separate ways. There were better things I could spend $150 on, but speeding tickets are just a tax for driving the way you want to. I've accepted that and I moved on. I didn't get too far.

Almost to work, I was riding along with the flow of traffic following a silver Ford Fivehundred, license plate number "JVW 3397", when a hard object (read: rock) struck my windshield and pounded a 10 inch crack into it. I swore.

Now many of you know, I'm a pretty quiet guy. I don't get worked up over much but when I saw that my windshield was toast I went off. I cursed, I shouted, I made obscene gestures to all around. Some poor old lady in her giant maroon Buick just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time as I unleashed both barrels of my fully extended digits. I feel a little bad about traumatizing someone's grandmother, but casualties happen.

These situations on their own I could deal with. But to have my entire work environment stood on it's head one day, and then have a $400 drive to work the next, that's just God telling me he doesn't like me. I can take the hint.

Distortion Field of Suck

Crappiest two days EVER. I shall elaborate soon, right now I have too much shit to do.