| Now with Extra Benzene!
Woman: I’m going to get some water. Friend, pointing to basket of water bottles: How about this? Woman: No, I don’t like that water. It’s too watery. I like Poland Spring. —Starbucks, 43rd & 8th via Overheard in New York, Apr 23, 2007 |
I went into my IBM office today. I participated in two conference calls—one, an IBM-Worldwide Editing Meeting about DITA, and the other our monthly department meeting.
I had a quick meeting with Bill S. to find out why I wasn’t seeing defects assigned to me in CMVC.
I stopped by the IBM Club office and picked up our tickets to Legends.
I stopped by NCSU Payroll to get my second $2500 check, of which I cleared $1718.02. Gotta love Uncle Sam.
Late in the afternoon, I ran over to Ricks Hall to get easels and boards to bring them to Biltmore for tomorrow’s S-L celebration event.
I went to the office of an administrative assistant who had a key to the room in which the easels and boards were stored. Drama ensued.
- The administrative assistant at the office said, “Uh oh,” as she went to get the key to the storage room from where it was “supposed” to be. Then said, “I remember leaving with the key the other day, stopping by the gym and realizing I had it with me, and took it home. That’s where it is.”
- We tried another administrative person down the hallway to see if she had a key. She didn’t.
- We tried a guy down the hall that the first assistant thought might have a key. He didn’t, but said, “Walter (the cleaning person) should have one.”
- Assistant One says, “He goes home at noon.”
- Optimism Man, not deterred, says, “Ah, Master Lady will have one—she’s got the master key for the building.”
- We go upstairs, find Master Lady and she, Assistant One, Optimism Man, and I all go down to the basement to open it with the master key. The master key doesn’t fit this particular lock.
- Optimism Man sees the door move as the Master Lady tries to stick her key in harder. “It’s open,” he says.
- Master lady says, “No, it isn’t”; Optimistic Slave Man pushes it, and voila!
- The boards are huge. I can’t see as I’m carrying them, and I’m parked across Hillsborough St. I wave them to one side, look for traffic, wave them to the other side, look the other ways for cars, and then sail across the street hoping nothing changes from my last scan.
- The boards are too big to fit in my Camry trunk. I make an executive decision to let them hang out of my trunk.
- Since I’d just grabbed two boards to try them, I made this trip four more times—10 boards the first time, 12 boards the second time, 12 easels the third trip, and 12 easels the last trip. I survive.
- I drove slowly to Biltmore with my flashers on and my trunk bobbing up and down over the speed bumps. I pulled into a back door area of the building, parked illegally, and unload the goods in four loads to the downstairs lobby.
- I made four more trips moving everything from the lobby to George’s office on the second floor.
- I returned to my car—no parking ticket! Yay! A happy ending.
I made little ham salad sandwiches and little pimento cheese sandwiches, which I took to tonight’s defenses. Kim and Milton presented tonight, and they both did very well. One of Milton’s consultants didn’t show up. Crazy.
I joined Kim, her husband Stephan, Milton, and his parents for drinks at Mitch’s afterwards to celebrate. We took a picture for an STC newsletter article. Three happy campers who have completed their oral defenses of the Master’s degree program:
I stopped by karaoke on the way home, where I stayed briefly and spoke mostly with Gerald while I was there. In the course of our conversation, he mentioned that he was dating Don, Carl’s ex. I’d forgotten that. Wonder how that’s going.
I was in bed by a decent hour. It’s off to NYFC in the morning.
I hate that I missed checking in with Robert this evening.