White Lightning Axiom: Redux

Long weekend. Sure, it was only 2 days and flew by in a flash, but I still have to say that. It's in the contract, you see. Signed in blood, small print, Helvetica. Yep. But lets go back to the beginning. Waaay back. All the way back to ... ummm, Friday afternoon. I got the news that I would be assigned to a NEW project in spite of the fact that I've only been working on the old project for some 8 hours now. Okay, fine. The work is in it's initial stages so the requirements and design are still a little loose. Apparently, I'll be required to attend a meeting on Monday at the client site along with the rest of the team to discuss the project. The client site is in Princeton NJ. About 30 miles north of the manor and 60 miles away from Corporate HQ. I think I'll drive so I don't need to get a ride all the way back to the HQ just to turn around an drive back the same way to get home. In other work news, we are apparently getting into negotiations with an old boss of mine from MBNA about a bunch of work that he needs done at his new company. He is a really good guy and you always know where you stand with him. A few years back, he found out that he had some precancerous growths so they removed a set of his organs (spleen, gall bladder, etc) and turned him into an instant diabetic. I suppose since he is married, has three kids and so forth, the choice was real obvious. I let the boss lady know to tell him I said Hi. We exchange Christmas cards every year but have had limited contact outside of that. It'll be nice to 'ping' him again. That whole cancer thing ... seems to be a real prevalent thing in my life these days. Hrmmm. The silver lining of that little nugget is the news that the Petite Mother In Law is going to be sent home and seems to be doing much better now.

Saturday was spent mostly slacking away the morning and getting ready to bring the kids to a birthday party (4th) for another set of twins. Odd thing about that is there were only 6 kids at the party, each of whom were a set of twins. Next year, we will expect another one of the Duality Wife's friends to have a set of twins ... something in the water. Reminds me of the movie Brazil where the 'Hero' was speaking to a protagonist about his kids ... 'How are the twins?','Great, but they are triplets now ... just had a third one cloned.' Yikes, these folk all work for Pharma ... something in the coolaid at the lunch counter indeed. We stayed at the party till 1800 hours and helped clean up while we talked. Since the kids were playing so well together, it was a fairly good experience. The parents had a few moments of relief and the kids got to jump on the sofas. The kids dozed off the minute we got out of the driveway and were in blissful dreamland with their balloons and partybags firmly secure in their tiny clenched fists (of doom). They had a quick bath (in mortal combat) at home and went right to bed. Even with the relaxed conditions, the Mrs and I were still quite tired. I even nodded off at one point and the Mrs took a picture of Alexis putting a play-drill to my head. If the photo ever makes it to the net, I'll make sure to post it.

Sunday was a late morning as well. I brought Jake to the noon mass with me and he was actually a polite and mostly reserved little man for me. He had his books, toys and snacks but showing up 15 minutes early for services is usually a portend of sorrowful endings. Sure, he had to go potty about a dozen times throughout the hour long test of wills, but he did not wet himself, throw anything, assault the priest or grab the communion chalice. Very well behaved, yes. After that, I brought in wood to refill the brackets (both empty or nearly so) and took down the last of the Christmas lights. The sudden increase in my exercise was felt deeply the next day, of course. On irritation about the lights ... it turns out that the local rodent family members have developed a taste for electric wiring. The damned squirrels chewed off one light and severed a few lines on another string. Two lines out of five were made dangerous. Now of course I could fix this but the chance of shorts and fires is considerable now and I would only use these outdoors ... way far away from the manor. I should just toss them and get 5 sets of LED lights instead. We'll cross that bridge next December.

And then there was Monday. We got up late because some gremlins were playing with the alarm clocks. Go figure. I had to shuffle everyone out the door so that the Mrs could make a 0900 meeting at work. She was a tad late, but not as late as her boss who called the meeting. My Princeton meeting was not till Noon so I had to be at the office before 1100 to turn around and go right back up that way. Nonsense. The meeting was 4 hours plus 2 hours of commute. Rough day.

# posted by mdmhvonpa @ 7:54 AM