I worked from home this morning.
Our monthly EAGLE luncheon was at Baja Fresh on Glenwood Avenue at11:45. When I arrived, Jay, Kathy, Jon, and the cutie Paul were there sitting outside. Jay said, “I think I’ve seen you three times now since you’ve returned from your trip and you’ve had the t-shirt on every time.” Actually, it’s only the second time. I wore it a week ago Friday (or was it last Friday) when we had lunch with Richard and Jon at Danny’s in RTP.
After we’d ordered and had already started eating, Frank arrived. I’d forgotten that he has a tongue piercing (a silver ball), which was very distracting every time he talked.
We discussed a variety of topics during lunch, including a lot of the current EAGLE database discussion, current movies, and whether saying, “The graphics in this book are lame,” would be offensive to someone in a wheelchair.
After lunch, I stopped by home, grabbed my backpack, and left for my appointment with Susan, without looking at the email that contained her office number. This I realized at the light at Gorman and Avent Ferry. I was already barely going to make it on time, if I did, and it was six of one, half dozen of the other, in terms of going back to get the address, or just trying to find the room when I got there. Both of them were going to make me even later. Grrrrrrrr.
Fortunately, I got a parking spot in front of the Post Office, and as I was walking by the post office, I saw this striking young college kid. Yum. After about five seconds, it registered that it was Adam. That boy is such a doll.
I got to Tompkins right at 1:45. However, I tried the room I thought was her office, from the number I’d remembered, but it wasn’t. I stopped in an office where I saw someone who was probably a TA, and asked them to look up her office number on the web. They told me 131D.
I thought I remembered her saying that her office was way down the hall across a lobby area, so that it looked like the building was ending, but that there were actually more offices on the other side. I did that, and saw the numbers counting down 127, 129.. and came to 131. There were no A,B,C,or D indicators on the door, and no names by the side of this door, though, like the other offices, so I went around the corner, where I found more rooms, 133, 135…
I went back and knocked on the 131 door. After probably 30 seconds, I was starting to walk away, someone opened the door, and when I asked if it was Dr. Katz’s office, said, “This is a control room.” Turns out that once I’d crossed the lobby into that other section, I had actually gone into a new building — the Winston building. Grrrrrr. Now it’s getting close to 1:50, and I only have a 15 minute slot with Susan.
I stopped in another office area that had a receptionist, and she told me to go back across the lobby, back into the Tompkins building then upstairs to 246, that’s where the English department offices were. I did that and got into this very large office area with lots of offices. I walked down the main aisle looking at the names on the doors to no avail. I got to the end of that hall, and once again poked my head in someone’s office to ask. I was hoping that these people would at least know who she was since this was the English department.
This guy looked like he might have been a professor. He had a half of a half a sandwich left, which had teeth marks all the way across it, like he had been nibbling on it like an ear of corn. He was thin, of course. He also had a half a banana sitting on his desk. He looked up her office number in an internal directory instead of the web, but it, too, said 131D. “That’s downstairs, right here at this end of the building,” he said.
It was. 1:55. Whew.
Susan seemed unfazed, and in fact, said, “Just a minute, I’m checking my voice mail.” So we got through our discussion, and were actually able to chat beyond 2:00, as she had no one scheduled for the 15-minute slot after mine. We talked about ideas for my paper, and it was a good exchange. From there, I went to work, as I had that 4-5 meeting with Greg and Govind.
Dr. Dicks’ class was pretty good tonight. He covered four chapters in Hackos’ book like that, and then opened it to the class for discussion. Not many people had much to say, and we actually ended up getting out a tad early, at about 7:05.
On my way out, I remembered that I’d forgotten to get the coupon book that has the coupon for a “buy one, get one free” dinner to where I’m meeting Steve for dinner. I weighed the value of running home to get it, but then remembered that they have a ton of those books at the student book store. I went there, and it was closed, which I found both surprising and annoying. I thought it was open until 8:00 on weekdays. Oh well.
On the way off campus, I stopped at this little convenience store that’s right near the parking deck that’s near the book store, but they didn’t have it either. They said that the thought they had them in Talley, the student center. Forget it, I thought, but as I got to the light at Avent Ferry, I thought, “Oh I think they have them in the Avent Ferry shopping center, right there across the intersection. I stopped by there, also to no avail. By now I had used up enough gas to double the price of dinner, so I headed out to the restaurant couponless.
Steve was there when I got there, out front having a cigarette and talking on the phone. We had a good dinner, caught up on a lot of things, and boy-watched of course. We both considered going to Flex later, but neither did.