Onehundredfourtytwo - New Comp

We just got a new computer. Everything was great, but when I tried to install MS Office on it, it would not install. So I rebooted, and it blue screened on me. I cannot stand that. You buy a nice piece of equipment for once, and out of the box there is an issue. This shouldn't happen. I was able to recover from it, but I should not have to reinstall the OS on a new system just so the fucker works?!? I was a bit disenfranchised by this.

Onehundredthirtyfive - Giro d'Italia

We thought we had more time to check out, but had to at 10am. We decided to stop by Montalcino on the way to the airport. It was a slow steady rain the entire day. As we arrived in Montalcino it was packed, completely! Then we saw signs for the Giro d'Italia. NICE! So we parked, which seemed to be completely outside the city, and walked in. The rain kept coming. We walked around, took some pictures, grabbed some Pizza, and headed out. We figured the roads would be closed soon to let the race through. We still had a plane to catch and didn't want to be stuck in Italy. We were just able to get out, and were even turned around because of road closures, but managed to press on. They must have closed the roads about a half hour later. We got to the airport after cracking the Rental Car Return secret location. We let our son play a bit before checking in, but when we did the line was completely ridiculous. There were only two people were checking in about 300 passengers. The line for Security was about 2 people. We got to the gate and the plane was an hour and fifteen minutes late.

Onehundredtwentyseven - Going on Vacation

We flew to Rome today to begin our week long holiday. We had planed on going to into Rome, but never made it. We had to get 3 different rental cars (1st for some reason could not function with the GPS I had requested - not sure why because that plugs into the cigarette lighter, and let's face it almost everyone smokes in Europe, so the damn thing should have one; 2nd replacement car was a chinced out 2-door Alfa Romeo posing as a sports car, which may have been fine but we had our son with us and his car seat and didn't want the inconvenience of the 2-door; 3rd car was ok but it was a brand new Peugeot which I was paranoid about the whole time because I didn't want trouble if it was returned with a dent or worse despite our almost full coverage ($1000 deductible), and couldn't withdrawal money from the ATM to pay cash for the Hotel, had to get food for dinner, and by this time it was 6pm. No Rome.

Onehundredtwentyfour - The Meeting

Get a group of 7 high profile people who are experts in their field in a room and present to them for 2 days. Add to it a short fused moderator who is batting for the 7 and it makes for a real fucking treat. I can't wait until vacation.

Onehundredtwentythree - Flight to Mallorca

I had to leave for this meeting today. I'll be home on Wednesday after this 1.5 day presentation is over with. I think AirBerlin had their flight music donated, they were playing "Sweet Home Alabama, All Summer Long"; Cheryl Crow - Fight for this Love, Stanfour - Wishing you were, and Robbie Williams - Morning Sun. I actually took the time to write this down, because it was the pinnacle of my day (at 6am) and since I knew that the complete misalignment with my music preferences was certainly blog-worthy. To top it off, the same damn Cheryl Crow song was playing in the cab on my way to the hotel!

Onehundrednineteen - More 3 Hour Meetings

More presentation reviews, gotta love 'em.

Onehundredeightteen - 5 Hour Meetings

More meetings? Yeap, five hours of dialoging through a presentation for next week. I cannot wait until it is over with.

Onehundredsixteen - Booked Solid

Sometimes I don't understand meetings. We sit, we talk, we all get up to speed on things we normally should all know, and then we spend time writing them up with another meeting the following week. It is rediculous. We should all talk anyway. I think I am going to start canceling meetings.

Onehundredthree - Long Day

Got in early, left late. I don't like it when meetings go long and your evening is shot. Plus the project list was released today and of course everyone was flustered.

Nintynine - Friday Fly Back

Friday was the return trip. Overnight flight, we sat behind my companies head of Europe and in front of a lady who couldn't turn off her light. I was please that my son was able to sleep most of the flight, but sad that my wife had to hold him the whole time. US Airways is so ghetto, I hope I never have to fly with them again. Pure chince. Old jet, hell of a noise on take off, really bad food, and when we requested a bulkhead seat with a bassinet, they stuck us in the side where there was none, and did not even have a lap belt for our son, they told us we should have picked up an FAA approved belt before we boarded. Hey US Airways Lady Steward, maybe I'll fly Lufthansa next time because they provide child safety lap belt for free, not to mention individual TV's with your own movie option, oh wait and they also have food which is more than just one muffin for the second meal on a trans-Atlantic flight, and I almost forgot, they have baby changers in more than one lavatory. Snap.

Nintyeight - Closing Time

So we had closing on our house today. We found a buyer and had to bend a bit to get the sale to go. We had committed to upgrading the kitchen because every house on the market had one. But then there was the home inspection, which ID'ed the roof to be out of date, and needed replacement. The buyer's agent recommended a guy who turned out to be the low bidder, however, during the walk through on the day of closing, the roofer had stepped through the ceiling above the stairs and the garage door wouldn't work. To top it off, the buyer had money wired from another country which required traceability and resulted in a delayed closing date. We signed off on the closing, checked the house which we found the garage door to be locked (simple fix), and withheld the final payment check for the roofer until the ceiling was repaired just in case the buyer walked. What a fucking hassle!

Nintysix - Souwf Joysie

We took a trip down south today. Totally not for me. I had a really hard time trying to interact with everyone. I think I will bite my tongue (so to speak).

Ninetyone - 2x Prof

I was in a lab today with two top professors. Wow, the competing ego's were a bit much to start the day with. After lunch things got better, but still you could feel the subtle verbal ego jabs. I think next time I won't schedule two professors in a lab on the same day.

Eightyseven – Right is not Right

My wife and I got into some heavy conversations today about the state of the US. The depth of the trouble is far beyond the economic depression which most people would not go so far to say. The discussion mainly focused around the sale of our house, the work contractors have performed on it, including their lack of professionalism in completing the job, the lack of respect of other peoples property, not just with our house as a rental property but for rentals in general, the changes in political landscape which creates a further rift between the left and right primarily and currently driven and fueled by “tea parties” and the likes of Fox News, and the overall lack of compassion, lack of respect, and outright discrimination that takes place by bigoted right extremists. We were quite impassioned by the discussion to the point we were border-line arguing with each other whether or not to let go of some of the issues and what it means to “let it go.” She always knows the right medicine, because she told me (with kind persuasion) to go for a run. Perhaps my internal rage was fueled by the screams embedded in the slaughtered flesh of the bacon I had for breakfast. I ran, and kept running. I was saddened by the dead pig and for the dying society. I felt the burden of the degrading US society, anesthetized by the solitude of rationality in my mind as if I were the only person to figure this out. I cannot be the only one to see this. The depth of this mentality in the US is frightening; the land where “I’m right” and freedom is interpreted as “free to do whatever the hell I want” up to and including infringement of other peoples rights (perceived or constitutionalized). Hypocritical are those who seek congregations of the like minded and whose beliefs of wholesomeness catalyze the demise of others. There is no leeway in the flippant minds of the self-assured, who enslave others by their rigor of values which only serves to propagate tragic social divides further into disrepair. Acceptance, tolerance, respect, and genuine caring about other people, are the only possibilities to reverse this.

Eighty - To Bike, or Not to Bike

I really feel like a lazy ass. The weather just turned marginally better, and I still find excuses to not go for a ride. Even when there is some time or whatever, it just seems that there is a sudden time shift, or excuse or de-motivating factor which prevents me from riding. I need to fix this.

Seventyeight - Exodus

With all that happened this week, there was a lot going on with many emotions, expectations and let downs. The office was in complete fucking turmoil. Add to that the secret re-prioritization project list with cut projects, re-allocated resources (people) and it made for a cluster-fuck of demotivation and anxiety. Almost as soon as it happened, the person the asked to step down had written off their group and was paranoid of who would take it over, and rescinded offerings to help out when she stiffed the team and left at 3pm. She might as well have told the team to go F-off when she left because, everyone came to me in a scramble to help out and promote documents and projects at the 11th hour. Total Chaos.

Seventyone - Full Circle

This week had a way of coming full circle. It started tough and ended tough with a late Friday at five o'clock reshuffling of priorities for the coming week with the only posiblity to get things done involves work on the weekend. Yeah!

Sixtyeight - Every Last Minute

We have a few big meetings coming up at work and needless to say there is always a scramble to get info, clarify points, double check numbers, and ensure clear messages. Somewhere in this chaos people forget to communicate what needs to be done, but clearly communicate when. So your left with 30 minutes to get information which you were never asked for to consolidate and put up numbers and discussion points which in the end all change because your boss's boss saw something he liked or didn't and now has to be reworked at the last minute, again.

Sixtythree - Outsource Yourself

I find that people are becoming better and better at asking enough questions and info and help from others that other people wind up doing the work for them. There was this guy who kept calling one of my workers and kept asking for info and to confirm info, and when it comes down to it, if there is a discrepancy or questions in the data, they can always defer and say, "well, I got that info from so-and-so" which makes it look like someone else did a bad job. All the glory, but none of the blame. I mean if you are responsible for numbers and estimations, have the balls to stand by them, don't defer your ignorance to someone else.

Sixty - ?WTF?

I was going to Diablog about stupid people at work who try every excuse to not do work when they have been caught or proven to not have done what they were responsible for. Needless to say I just Diabloged about it. Anyway, what a waste of a post...