Rough Week Let me tell you about it. I honestly don't know how I survive weeks like this one. As I mentioned in my last post, I was in a software familiarization class on Monday and Tuesday. It only went downhill from there. Wednesday morning I actually had to go in to my desk for a few hours. Plenty of email collected in the inbox insured that I did not have time to look at anything remotely resembling real work before I had to leave for off-site meetings in the afternoon. I grabbed a quick lunch on my way to the Museum of Flight where cookies the size of a salad plate and plenty of coffee and juice waited to accompany an afternoon of customer focus meetings. The meetings were actually scheduled over several days, but my attendance was limited to relevant portions yesterday afternoon and all day today. The location proved convenient, as I had not been back to the museum since the Concorde exhibit had been set up. Even more convenient was the fact that a former crew member of the very specimen parked on the museum ramp happened to present, and more than happy to share stories of his experience with the aircraft and its uber-elite clientelle. Today included wonderful catered meals and some excellent perspective from the ultimate end users of our product, and in the end, isn't any day spent away from the desk a good one? So, yeah, maybe there was just a little bit of sarcasm in the first few lines. Now Tom=10 hours from a 3-day weekend.
posted by Tom 5:55 PM
Monday, March 08, 2004
Aftermath Apparently there is at least one anonymous soul who is interested in how things went down a couple of weeks ago. I'm almost surprised that I still have people checking in on this site, considering how sporadic the updates have been. On the plus side, my posting frequency did not sucumb to the normal "get a girl>>do all mental processing with her>>stop posting" pattern since I didn't post any more often before the girl came into the picture. Anyway...
I had a really good chat with my sister. We went to starbucks for the express purpose of using thier chess board and not buying anything. I succeeded--she didn't, but she did manage to beat me after I got a little too focused on the conversation to pay quite close enough attention to the game. It sounds like she is starting to figure out that maybe people besides her have changed in the last 8 years. Since she returned from the Philippines after graduating from high school, she has had a tendancy to relate with me like we were still 15 and 17. It hit her a couple of days before we had this conversation, largely as a result of a talk she had with Linz, that a lot of her issues with me are a result of looking at our interaction through that filter. I still don't think she's exactly happy that I have a closer relationship with her roommate that she does--Kristen also tends to have a very competitive attitude towards me, and consequently a strong sense of inferiority if I have anything "better" than her--but to put it in her words, "I decided that at least Lindsey is too good for you, because you could have gotten together with someone whom you are too good for, and then I would have to put up with her." Bottom line: sis' attitude still needs some work, but she's come a long way from where she has been stuck for the last several years.
As I mentioned in my last post, JT had a layover in Seattle a couple of weeks ago. He was only in town for an overnight, but he did have time to treat us (me, sis & Linz) to an excellent dinner, complete with sushi bar and wise-cracking chef, at Benihana's. After dinner we drove up to the girls' place so JT could have a quick look. Lindsey was excited to show off her home-made bed/desk/shelves. We didn't spend a lot of time there, as it was already getting late, and JT and I still had some talking to do. As I drove him back to his hotel, we had our little chat. I won't go into all of the specifics, but basically I told him there was some mutual interest and that, while he shouldn't expect any big annoucement immediately, things appear to be headed in a serious direction and that I wanted him to be involved from the beginning. We had a great discussion over hot apple pie with cheddar cheese at Denny's down the road from his hotel and...well, yeah, let's just say things are good.
In other news, the weather here has been ridicuously good the last few weeks. It's never sunny in Seattle before June; what the heck is going on? This post has come to you direct from an on hours training class at work, mainly during the frequent breaks the instructor feels are necessary to maintain focus on the rather bland material (not that the subject isn't interesting, but the course material goes over everything in such detail as to be extremely tedious). Now, however, we have finished for the day, and I'm off to thoroughly enjoy my commute home...with the sunroof open.
posted by Tom 2:34 PM
It starts with the shoe. Maybe the next day it's a t-shirt or a sock. You don't know if the washing machine ate it, or your roommate borrowed it a month ago and forgot that it was yours. All you know is that by the end of the week, you're walking to class naked because you don't have any clothes left.
