White Lightning Axiom: Redux

The last 48 hours have been quite interesting. I've been kept quite busy with the going-ons in the Haupertionain Household. On Tuesday evening, the Mrs was out late (late-late, like 2300 hours) for a live webcast presentation for the Pacific Rim Associates and thus, I was left to my own devices. No problem. Really. Well, except that at the last moment I received a request from the New Project Manager to burn a disk for the visit that I would be making to a client the next morning. Really, it was not so much a request as it was an oversight. You see, I asked HIM to burn the CD and at 1530 when he had not dropped it off I went looking for him. Turns out, he left w/o making the effort leaving me to call him and ask "WTF!". So, there I was watching the progress bar at 1630 where it seemed to be stuck at '30 seconds left' for the last 45 minutes. Urgh. Rule #1, never watch a CD burn of an oracle DB dump for it will never finish. Sure, I was only 20 or 30 minutes late leaving, but every minute past 1615 is two minutes I'll spend on the road. That's the rule till about 1830 when it is much too late anyways.

I go straight to the Day Care/ReEducation Facility and retrieve the kids ... just in time. Jake, unbeknownst to me, is in the beginning stages of a nasty cast of hives. He is entirely uninterested in dinner and Alexis finds that when the Parental Units are engaged with difficult behavior on Jacob's part, it is best to launch a 2 prong attack. To cut to the quick here, I end up abandoning the remainder of dinner and dragging them through the tub for an 'on time' pre-sleep story. To bed by 2100 hours, unusual. While the kids were plotting their evening hijinks, I went out to shovel up more sawdust on the carport.

The Mrs arrives and on queue, Jake is out of bed trying to get our attention about his discomfort. Peter and the wolf came into play here though and it took the Mrs and I some time to discover what was going on. A little anti-histamine and he eventually nodded off to a restless slumber. Some time in the dead of night, the Mrs became weary of the constant barrage of knees and elbows pounding away at her internal organs. She took Jake to the 'guest room' where there would be a bit more space. I did not even notice. I did wake up in the early morning and noticed one small form nuzzled up to me and assumed that the Mrs had fallen asleep at the computer bank. Later on, when the alarm clock finally sent electric jolts via the leads connected to my privates, I woke to find that it was Alexis next to me. Sneaky. Gotta keep an eye on this one, she is quite opportunistic.

It's morning, I've not had my quart of starter coffee and I'm sitting in the lobby of the client site. My contact has not arrived. Ok, fine, I charge by the hour so take your time. The rest of the day is spent busting my broken rear on wrapping up various tweaks to the project. We are about 3 days over schedule. Not really though since we spent a few days off the project. For better or for worse, the Phase I prototype is completed. It's swim night so I blast off and hit the (congested) PATpk. Kids swim, Mrs arrives, we both cheer on the kids as they display their dolphin imitations. By the time we start up lessons again in 2 weeks, they kids will be fully inclined to teach the class. (End proud daddy spew here). The Mrs has scheduled an appointment for Jake to see the pediatrician at 1830 so she kidnaps the pink and red leopard. For 10$, the doctor says it's hives, probably from the antibiotics we have been giving him. Funny thing, I said the same thing and it only cost the Mrs 45 seconds of her time. What is that old saw: Accept free advice but pay close attention to advice you pay for. At the prices of co-pays these days, does anyone actually get a second opinion. In the Nurse Practitioner's defense, she also said it could have been the result of a virus as well. The Merck Manual said as much too.

In other news, I tried to go to a Knights of Columbus meeting, but was 5 minutes late and the other guy left. Beh. I'll know better next time. Jake was up in the early evening and sometime around 0230. The Mrs did not notice the second coming of Jake but since he was using my jaw as a foot-hold, I took him back to his sofa-bed and let him sleep there. I'm so tired right now that I would most likely get whatever he has due to stress on my immune system if hi is really affected by a virus. Not a really good excuse to withdraw affection from him but I don't think he would like me much when I look like a giant, grunting zit.

# posted by mdmhvonpa @ 9:28 AM