Mind-Numbing Boredom, a Pair of Contortionists, and Honeybees
The past few days have been driving me bat shit. I've been so damn busy that it's become frustrating. To give you an idea of how busy, let me just say that it’s Saturday and I’m at work writing this.
The frustration actually began this past Monday when my manager told me that I was to attend the upcoming manager offsite. I tried begging out with a tale of woe that included upcoming deadlines and promises made, but did my manager want to hear about that? No.
So, I was forced to make arrangements to attend. The organizers of this assembly had already changed the venue three times. I suspected a cluster*** in progress, and became more frustrated yet. As I attempted to prepare my presentation the day before the cluster*** began, I was inundated with a rash of requests for everything from meetings to a need for servers to be built and shipped, not to mention requests from another contract on which I work. When shit rolls down hill, folks, it builds up speed fast toward the end. This, of course, is where I’m usually standing.
The big day of the offsite came and we settled in for two days of presentations and information exposure. It was like drinking info from a fire hose, minus the nice minty flavor. Forward a bit to Friday afternoon. The meeting was supposed to end around 3:30. I have dinner plans at 5:30. The meeting doesn’t end, of course, until 4:30. By this time I’m scrambling to get the hell out of there and get home, shower, and change clothes to go meet our friends. I manage to make it home in record time (because there wasn’t as much traffic, honest, Officer!), perform the aforementioned duties, load the wife in the car, and take off back down to the city.
We went to our friends’ place for appetizers and cocktails and then we all loaded into the auto for the ½ mile trip down to one of OKC’s swankiest hip places called Nova. It's an eclectic restaurant. Or, as we say back East, “This was a classy joint.” Very chic, very big city. Good food and great martini’s too.
However, there was an issue at the end that threw us off schedule. The show we were going to see started at 8pm. At 7:30, I looked over and saw our waiter at the computer furiously tapping the touch screen and repeatedly swiping our card with an air of increasing frustration. Apparently they were having computer issues. After watching this for about 5 minutes, I got up and headed his way. I asked him if there was a problem and started to pull cash out of my wallet. He had written the card number down on a piece of paper and told me to sign it and they would enter it in later. Normally, I would object to something like this, simply from a security point of view, but we were in a hurry and so I asked the wife to sign. I was calculating the amount of time in my head it would take us to get to the Civic Center and I was coming up short.
Somehow, with fate on our side (honest, Officer!), we made the show with less than a minute to spare. It was close. And, we could have made it faster, but you just do not hurry a pregnant woman. Anywhere. For anything (except maybe food...oh, and having the baby). The best she can do is waddle fast, and I think even that makes her uncomfortable.
The show we saw, Cirque Dreams, was really cool. If you’ve ever been to Vegas to see Cirque de Soliel or seen Cirque de Soliel on television, then you know how good the acrobats and performers really are at what they do. One of the highlights of the show was this pair of contortionists. They were sisters from Mongolia who went to the Mongolian Circus School for contortionists from the time they were children. What they could do with their bodies seemed inhuman. I guess the best way to describe it is to compare it to Mr. Fantastic from the Fantastic Four comic books.
After 10 hours of unadulterated sleep, I ate breakfast/lunch/whatever and headed to work.
Things were going fine. Until I actually got to work. I unlocked the main door and entered a foyer where you have to either swipe a card key or enter a PIN to get the damn door to open. I pulled my card out and gave it a swipe.
Nothing.
Again.
Nothing.
Shit.
After repeated attempts, I realized that it just wasn’t going to work no matter how many times I tried it. I whipped out my cell phone like a pistol and started dialing people. Some people have PINs. I'm just not one of them. The first two people I called didn’t answer. Shit.
Finally, I said screw it and called the big boss. I was here on a Saturday because of the offsite that the boss required I attend, so I figured I would place a call and see if I could get the boss’ code.
Ring.
No answer.
Ring.
No answer.
“Um, hello,” said a teenage girl-sounding voice. Lots of background noise can be heard.
“Is the boss there?”
“Um, hold on,” said the voice in that teenage angst-driven manner.
“Hello?”
“Hey boss, it’s me, Lex. I’m at work (because of you, I think) and I can’t get in. My key card isn’t working and I need to get some work done. Can you tell me your PIN so I can get in.”
“Who is this?”
(No, I’m not making this up.)
“It’s me, Lex. I need your PIN to get into work. I called several other people and no one is answering their phones.” It’s a good damn thing there’s not an emergency here, I’m thinking.
“Um, ok, it’s.” So, I tap it in and, damn, if it doesn’t work! I was skeptical even a PIN would work at this point. The system is so old I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t crap the bed pretty soon.
“Thanks, boss. See ya Monday!” and I hang up.
Which brings me to where I was when I started writing this. I slaved away all afternoon installing operating systems and other programs on these two big-ass servers. Finally, it was time to play a bit.
This next bit may seem a little surreal. My ex-wife’s husband invited me to go with him, my son, and one of my son’s friends to see the Hornets vs. the Dallas Mavericks here in OKC. Since the Hornets NBA franchise has come to town, going to the games is a big to-do. TK has season tickets (to select games only…he went in with some of his friends and they each get to go to an equal number of games) and he had an open slot and wanted to know if I wanted to go. Hell yeah!
Plus, it was good father/son time with the kiddo. We met for dinner and then went into the game. It was great. The kids had all manner of junk food and we had beer. Also, we were right in front of the Honeybees, the Hornet’s cheerleaders. It was fun watching them perform at halftime. ;)
Anyway, the Hornets lost, but gave the Mavs a hell of a run. At the end the score was 109 to 103.
In any event, a good time was had by all. I went home and collapsed and slept another 10 hours. Sunday involved watching Magnolia which I had never seen before and ticking off the list of honey-dos.
It’s too bad I didn’t have one more day. Some weekends I feel like I need an extra day to recover from the weekend itself. Damn, I hope that’s not a sign of getting old.
-la
The frustration actually began this past Monday when my manager told me that I was to attend the upcoming manager offsite. I tried begging out with a tale of woe that included upcoming deadlines and promises made, but did my manager want to hear about that? No.
So, I was forced to make arrangements to attend. The organizers of this assembly had already changed the venue three times. I suspected a cluster*** in progress, and became more frustrated yet. As I attempted to prepare my presentation the day before the cluster*** began, I was inundated with a rash of requests for everything from meetings to a need for servers to be built and shipped, not to mention requests from another contract on which I work. When shit rolls down hill, folks, it builds up speed fast toward the end. This, of course, is where I’m usually standing.
The big day of the offsite came and we settled in for two days of presentations and information exposure. It was like drinking info from a fire hose, minus the nice minty flavor. Forward a bit to Friday afternoon. The meeting was supposed to end around 3:30. I have dinner plans at 5:30. The meeting doesn’t end, of course, until 4:30. By this time I’m scrambling to get the hell out of there and get home, shower, and change clothes to go meet our friends. I manage to make it home in record time (because there wasn’t as much traffic, honest, Officer!), perform the aforementioned duties, load the wife in the car, and take off back down to the city.
We went to our friends’ place for appetizers and cocktails and then we all loaded into the auto for the ½ mile trip down to one of OKC’s swankiest hip places called Nova. It's an eclectic restaurant. Or, as we say back East, “This was a classy joint.” Very chic, very big city. Good food and great martini’s too.
However, there was an issue at the end that threw us off schedule. The show we were going to see started at 8pm. At 7:30, I looked over and saw our waiter at the computer furiously tapping the touch screen and repeatedly swiping our card with an air of increasing frustration. Apparently they were having computer issues. After watching this for about 5 minutes, I got up and headed his way. I asked him if there was a problem and started to pull cash out of my wallet. He had written the card number down on a piece of paper and told me to sign it and they would enter it in later. Normally, I would object to something like this, simply from a security point of view, but we were in a hurry and so I asked the wife to sign. I was calculating the amount of time in my head it would take us to get to the Civic Center and I was coming up short.
Somehow, with fate on our side (honest, Officer!), we made the show with less than a minute to spare. It was close. And, we could have made it faster, but you just do not hurry a pregnant woman. Anywhere. For anything (except maybe food...oh, and having the baby). The best she can do is waddle fast, and I think even that makes her uncomfortable.
The show we saw, Cirque Dreams, was really cool. If you’ve ever been to Vegas to see Cirque de Soliel or seen Cirque de Soliel on television, then you know how good the acrobats and performers really are at what they do. One of the highlights of the show was this pair of contortionists. They were sisters from Mongolia who went to the Mongolian Circus School for contortionists from the time they were children. What they could do with their bodies seemed inhuman. I guess the best way to describe it is to compare it to Mr. Fantastic from the Fantastic Four comic books.
After 10 hours of unadulterated sleep, I ate breakfast/lunch/whatever and headed to work.
Things were going fine. Until I actually got to work. I unlocked the main door and entered a foyer where you have to either swipe a card key or enter a PIN to get the damn door to open. I pulled my card out and gave it a swipe.
Nothing.
Again.
Nothing.
Shit.
After repeated attempts, I realized that it just wasn’t going to work no matter how many times I tried it. I whipped out my cell phone like a pistol and started dialing people. Some people have PINs. I'm just not one of them. The first two people I called didn’t answer. Shit.
Finally, I said screw it and called the big boss. I was here on a Saturday because of the offsite that the boss required I attend, so I figured I would place a call and see if I could get the boss’ code.
Ring.
No answer.
Ring.
No answer.
“Um, hello,” said a teenage girl-sounding voice. Lots of background noise can be heard.
“Is the boss there?”
“Um, hold on,” said the voice in that teenage angst-driven manner.
“Hello?”
“Hey boss, it’s me, Lex. I’m at work (because of you, I think) and I can’t get in. My key card isn’t working and I need to get some work done. Can you tell me your PIN so I can get in.”
“Who is this?”
(No, I’m not making this up.)
“It’s me, Lex. I need your PIN to get into work. I called several other people and no one is answering their phones.” It’s a good damn thing there’s not an emergency here, I’m thinking.
“Um, ok, it’s
“Thanks, boss. See ya Monday!” and I hang up.
Which brings me to where I was when I started writing this. I slaved away all afternoon installing operating systems and other programs on these two big-ass servers. Finally, it was time to play a bit.
This next bit may seem a little surreal. My ex-wife’s husband invited me to go with him, my son, and one of my son’s friends to see the Hornets vs. the Dallas Mavericks here in OKC. Since the Hornets NBA franchise has come to town, going to the games is a big to-do. TK has season tickets (to select games only…he went in with some of his friends and they each get to go to an equal number of games) and he had an open slot and wanted to know if I wanted to go. Hell yeah!
Plus, it was good father/son time with the kiddo. We met for dinner and then went into the game. It was great. The kids had all manner of junk food and we had beer. Also, we were right in front of the Honeybees, the Hornet’s cheerleaders. It was fun watching them perform at halftime. ;)
Anyway, the Hornets lost, but gave the Mavs a hell of a run. At the end the score was 109 to 103.
In any event, a good time was had by all. I went home and collapsed and slept another 10 hours. Sunday involved watching Magnolia which I
It’s too bad I didn’t have one more day. Some weekends I feel like I need an extra day to recover from the weekend itself. Damn, I hope that’s not a sign of getting old.
-la
posted by Lex Armenia at 6:00 PM
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