White Lightning Axiom: Redux

Just before I left for the day, the PM came over and asked the jrPM and I to come with him for a talk in a meeting room. Very super-secret cone of silence type of deal. Hmmm, VRWC meeting? Naw, jrPM is a Democrat. Maybe she is a double agent! Nope, it turns out that we have been tasked with doing some work that we cannot admit to doing: writing requirements. Ok, here is how it works. The Sr Engineer (me) and the jrPM will be reading some docs and producing a minimal set of requirements for this (super secret double probation) project. Normally, the Business Analyst - BA (someone else) would do this, but the PM is doing it instead because he has no confidence in the current BA. Here is the snappy part, we cannot do this work since we have not been assigned to the project so any work we do must have the PM's name on it. I've done this kind of thing before so I have been ethically calloused. The jrPM is not pleased and voices her concern to me. This is really no different than being a TA in the academic world. The upside is that I have some work to do over the next few days ... idle hands and all.

I left shortly after the meeting so I could get back to the Manor in order to give the Mrs some air support. She has been alone all day with the kids and probably has a few interesting stories to tell. Some new wounds too, I'll bet. I'll put her name in for a purple heart. Getting back was easy enough. If you leave at 1530, the commute is something around 45 minutes. Not too shabby for a 30 mile sortie. Of course, since it was Presidents day, I'll assume that the light volume was more a function of the effectively reduced labor force rather than anything related to my attempts to avoid the rush hour. When I disembark in the car port, I give the Mrs a call to let her know I have arrived. The dogs will be barking and making a ruckus when I enter the house. They are protective of the Mrs and kids that way. I would like her to bring the Humongous Hounds to the Car Port Airlock and transfer station so that they will be able to see it is me and not some radical Islamic fundamentalist assassin squad. If the kids are asleep, the barking and rending of flesh from bone might wake them. That would be a Bad Thing^tm that I would prefer to avoid. Indeed, the kids are still in the throes of their afternoon cryogenic down-time. This gives me a few moments to run down the chore check-list and put some items behind me. First on the agenda, get the fire started in the wood stove. Pumping a few BTUs into the Manor should bring the kids out of their cryo-sleep.

The rest of the evening was fairly mundane. We ate dinner and then set off to the full-contact obstacle course to simulate combat for a bit. I was feeling a bit woozy and not quite lucid for some reason. Probably beef/alcohol/coffee withdrawal symptoms. The Twin Tyrants seemed to be more interested in their toys and books so I curled up on the sofa under a blanket and dozed off. It did not take long for them to realize the weakness of my defensive position and quickly laid siege to my sofa redoubt. Some day, I'll be hauling them out of bed at 0530 on a cold winters day and my revenge will be sweet. We end up putting the kids to bed an hour late and I feel exhausted. My body does, my mind is still running around and shooting off inquiries into deep memory. These mental gymnastics keeps me up till a bit after 0100. Ugh, of all the nights that the kids wake in the middle of the night, this would be a good one. Alas, everyone but the ever-watchful daddy is dreaming of 529s and 401ks.

The hour of judgment comes quickly. It is 0630 and the Hounds are agitating for release. Of course, I prepped their food the night before so they make short work of their outside duties. There is very little snow left and the temperature is above freezing. This means more mud. I have to wipe them down before letting them back into the Manor to get the 3 gallons of mud off their paws. Ahhh, the solemn beauty of a SouthEast Pennsylvania Winter. Yetch. The rest of the morning is all about getting out of the house. The roads are infinitely more congested than the previous day. Nobody does anything really surprising though, which, in itself, is surprising.

A few things need to get done today. I have decided to abandon the whole swallow/speech test thing. They could tell me that I have a problem (I already know that) but the therapy will not be covered. Ok, so I'll have to ante up loads of cash and time which could be better spent on my kids/home/wife so I can speak better and stop aspirating my tea and coffee. Naw, I'll just have to speak slower and pay attention to what I'm doing when I drink my 10+ cups of tea and coffee during the day. I also need to call AMH so I can get my MRI films back. The Mrs volunteered to drop in and pick them up since she drives by the Secret Government Genetic Research Lab disguised as a Hospital. Hmmm, when did I start growing these extra fingers on my left hand. Heh, that reminds me of the cats they have in Ithaca, NY. They call them Ithacats and they are polydactyl. The one that visits my Little Brother has 4 extra toes on each of the front paws. Something to do with the Cornell Cyclotron and its proximity to the 500 KW TRIGA Mark II nuclear reactor that they have decommissioned. Hmmm ... fingers ... yes. Speaking of fingers and hands, do you recall the fun I had shredding the skin off my knuckles this weekend when replacing the dying battery for the fusion cannon in the Super Saturn? Well, today I thought it would be a good idea to put some antibacterial gel on my hands. There are a number of sick people at the client site and I am just getting over a chest cold (that I got from Alexis). I have not experienced such a combination of general and localized pain in quite some time. I'll recover, but I know that any bacteria on my hands were done for in the first few seconds of my 'Ouchie-Ouch' dance. Hmmm, ingredients: 60% Ethyl Alcohol. Then there is water and about a thousand other additives with names like Agent Orange, DDT, Diazonol and Technetium-99m. Well, there goes my extra fingers ... burned right off.

# posted by mdmhvonpa @ 9:55 AM