What a BuzzKill

4 weeks and counting, and I haven’t gone a day at work without some mention or discussion or troubleshooting something to do with one of those infernal hand-held devices. Sure they’re about as handy as a rubber glove in a sex shop, but by golly I’d love it if I could just not have to deal with them for ONE STINKING DAY. I swear, it’s been enough to put me into another “Eggs with flippers” mood.

Segue into the sickness … I flew up to Sacramento on Monday to attend a course on Blackberry Enterprise Server Administration on Tuesday. I could tell that I was getting sick, but since the class, flight, and hotel had already been paid for, I started taking Airborne and hoped for the best. Well the best isn’t what happened and I found myself spending Monday waking up every 2 hours in a fevered sweat. It was fortunate that I had hopped into bed about 9 pm, otherwise I would have been a complete zombie for the training class.

After enjoying a lovely buffet breakfast Tuesday morning, I caught a taxi to the facility hosting the training. The course was definitely worth the time, and I learned quite a bit that I should have known BEFORE I was told to install the blasted platform and rolled it out to the CEO. It did become rather difficult to concentrate later in the afternoon as I could feel myself begin to come down with another fever.

The class eventually ended, I got my certificate of completion and I was off to catch a taxi to the airport. This turned out to be unnecessary, since one of the guys attending the class had a rental and was also headed there. Dexter turned out to be a real cool guy and we spent the time waiting for our respective flights talking shop over crappy Chinese food at the airport food court. The flight home was uneventful (as one would hope), but I was unable to sleep on the plane, as usual.

Christine, who had been gracious enough to watch Rece while I was away, came to pick me up at the airport. She was nice enough to tolerate my whining and got me back to my car, which I had left at work before my trip. That night’s sleep was good, thanks to a double shot of Nyquil.

I ended up calling in sick for the next couple of days (Wednesday & Thursday). To be honest, I almost wish I had done so today as well. On my way back from lunch I ran into the CEO in the parking structure and she brought up the Blackberry again. Damn it.

This entry used to like blackberries.

We received an email at the office from the CFO with a subject line of “Atari”. I about fell out of my chair upon reading it and felt it deserved to be shared…

“Atari is Japanese for “prepared to be attacked”I would like to forewarn you that while you may not hear it, there is something whispering “Atari“ from inside the refrigerator: I know, because I nearly lost my right arm just a moment ago.

Can we please work together to ensure that the items in the community refrigerator remain fresh and limited in their stay here. Right now, I am expecting DreamWorks’ next horror film to be about what is growing in the white box in the copier room.

Thank you”

This entry was pleasantly surprised.

Today I spent my lunch in the office break room. Usually it’s pretty quiet and I just read the paper. Today was a little more entertaining…

I was cleaning the inside of the microwave, as my food had splattered around the inside, when one of the ladies stopped in and gawked at me in amazement. She commented on how she’d like to get a pictures of a man cleaning out a microwave. She gave me a high-five on the way out.

As I sat eating my delicious re-heated lasagna leftovers (thanks Christine!) I picked up a conversation around the corner by the refrigerators. Three gals were standing around and staring into one of them, commenting in rather obvious awe of how clean they were. Then they opened the freezer to a chorus of “Ooooo….” and “Aaaah…”. One came around the corner and noticed my grin and giggled, realizing how strange the conversation must have sounded like from where I was sitting.

Something tells me that some of the folks in the office could use a little time off.

This entry cleans up after his messes!

My inbox is where I keep all pending work requests, unanswered emails, etc. For the first time in probably 6 months, I’ve managed to get it down to this…

This is a sight for sore eyes!This entry likes to celebrate the simple things in life.

As promised, I’ve posted some Halloween Pictures on my Flickr account. I’ll post at least one more as soon as Christine sends me the one we took before I went trick or treating with Rece, Sam, & Anna.

This entry still craves sporkfuls of blood!