January 29, 2009 – 6:49 am
I took an actual sick day for the first time in years. Sure, many a time have I stayed home ill, only to end up working as much as usual thanks to the magic of VPN. And I intended to do the same yesterday, my laptop all set up and retrieving email after email. But I just couldn't stay focused long enough to do anything, so I went back to bed and proceeded to sleep for 7 hours.
I can't tell yet if I'm over the illness, which had no symptoms other than 'exhaustion.' I kind of suspect stress had something to do with it but that doesn't really narrow it down much; stress is pretty central to living in New York. Not that I mind it most of the time, but there's the stress of jamming onto a subway car to 'win' a good seat, and then there's the stress of producing corporate websites whose target audience may or may not exist. Plus meanwhile, all around me people have been getting laid off left and right. My morale is soaring.
Today I'll go into pay the piper, to catch up on all the work I missed yesterday as well as whatever they throw at me today. This double-whammy effect is what usually keep me in the office no matter my condition, but I'm hoping that my time out yesterday will have some positive attitudinal effect. Maybe I won't mind all the work if I'm feelin' positive! Yeah
January 27, 2009 – 5:20 am
So I'm back from Singapore again, another business trip of dubious utility. I didn't have too much trouble adjusting to the 13 hour time difference while I was there, but I'm having a hard time getting back on schedule here. I keep waking up at 5 AM and it's annoying. I guess I should think of something practical to do. Barring that, I can write a post. Singapore was nice and warm, and I finally checked out Little India and had some really good vegetarian Indian food. It's nice to wander into a place and look around at the buffet to see nothing but vegetarian food just as a matter of course. The only thing to worry about is what stuff had butter in it, but when in Rome …
Which is another annoying thing: my company hanged its web filter process AGAIN, so now my website is no longer blocked. Yay; however, they now block all blogger related sites, so I can't get to the control panel to post new entries. Grrr. I think if I had MT or WP or something I could do everything through my domain and not have this issue. But the likelihood of me sitting around, figuring out at long last how to put together a real blog seems small. I guess I'll just have save up my A-material for early-morning posts like these! Lucky you.
While I was gone our little kitten got neutered and vaccinated, so soon he'll be on the adoption market. He won't have any trouble finding a home, he's super cute and very gregarious, plus he has a funny, froggy little voice. Quite a package. It almost seems unfair to have such an easy case. Most of our other adoption cases were much harder, but adopting out a friendly 4-month old kitten sounds like something we could do in our sleep. Let's hope so, anyway.
December 2, 2008 – 3:32 pm
Now that I'm in my new office, I am surrounded by people I don't know. I suspect they worked at the same company as I before we were bought out, but who knows? I worked from home most of my career and then worked for a couple years in a satellite office. So I don't know most of em.
There's a guy one cubicle-group over from me, he's middle-aged, salt-and-pepper hair, wire-frame glasses. He is showing all the signs of Mid-life Crisis Syndrome. He's in his late 40s, works in finance, BUT: he drives a kickass motorcycle. See, ladies? He's still cool! He's still cool.
How do I know he drives a kickass motorcycle? Because he wears a leather jacket and carries a helmet in every day. I suppose it's possible he just walks around with the jacket and helmet on, but I have to hope there is a kickass motorbike in there somewhere. It saddened me for a while, he was just like the guy in Weeds who tries to capture some modicum of machismo by getting a Harley and growing a handlebar mustache (played by Andy Milder, pictured above in all of his badassery). But he runs afoul some REAL bikers and gets knocked off a guardrail and winds up in a wheelchair for most of season 3.
The other day I was walking past Mid-life Crisis guy's cubicle and I overheard him on his phone. He was speaking German. Then it dawned on me: This guy's not having a mid-life crisis, he's just German. Somehow that makes his behavior completely acceptable, I don't know why. What do Germans do when they want to remind themselves how cool they are? Buy another pair of leather pants? No one knows.
October 3, 2008 – 3:48 pm
I bought my first blazer since my bar mitzvah days today. What Century 21 could not provide, I found at TJ Maxx. What a store! Actually it was a minor miracle, they only had one in my size and it was just the sort of discounted, innocuous design I was looking for. I take a 38-long, which apparently is rare in these venues. They let me keep the hanger so I'm just gonna leave it in my office all the time in case I need it.
Next: pocket squares?
September 18, 2008 – 1:40 pm
I usually post during the weekdays here, but I have been stymied in my efforts lately. As you may know, my company was bought out by another company some months back and we are finally being switched over to their network. This has been pretty annoying all around, but everything has been hammered out now and I enjoy full access to the many wonderful opportunities that await me at the new company.
Sidebar: I'm getting so sick of the way office people use the word "opportunities" when they really mean "failure." Instead of saying they screwed something up, they always say they see "areas of opportunity" like they did somebody a favor.
Anyhow, one unfortunate opportunity in this regard is that the new company apparently thinks blogger is dangerous to productivity and has it blocked. This will either have the result of finally, after 5 years at this, to move this operation fully to the server instead of using Blogger's infrastructure. Or maybe I won't bother.
Even worse for me, Flickr is also blocked. I hate that. Half the time I spend during the day is checking to see if anybody has posted new cat photos! Hey, to thine own self be true. So I'm thinking maybe I'll get one of those nifty iPhone things and write it off as a business expense.
In any case, all this upheaval will culminate with me moving offices yet again, a little further downtown. For some reason, nobody is able to tell us when exactly when we will move, but I hope they give us at least a few more days; my cubicle is full of cat food I need to lug home still.
On the home front, I am happy to report the Mugsy (pictured above with perennial worrywart Freddie) is feeling much better and is back to looking like his usual disheveled self. Thanks to Empty Cages Collective, I got some Lysine gel to add to his food, which appears to have helped him fight off the infection. He still could use a good powerwashing but this is about as good as he ever looked.
