~Friday~ At 8:05, I realized that I was supposed to be at the Witherspoon building this morning as the back-up to a colleague who was presenting the IT information to the students at New Student Orientation. Knowing I could neither make it on the university bus line nor on the city bus line, I drove to campus and used one of my scratch-off parking permits that every person who uses public transportation gets a pack of each year.
I arrived at about 8:25, and started getting nervous when the presenter, whom I thought was Jen, but turned out to be Chris (from the Help Desk), didn’t arrive until about 8:35, when he was supposed to go on at 8:45. Although I’m the “back-up presenter,” I haven’t practiced the presentation at all, and it really would have been bad had I had to do it.
It turned out that there was a remote for the presentation, so I didn’t have to do anything but cheer Chris on, as the only other job for the back-up person is to change the slides for the presenter when there is no remote, and to help with questions at the end of the presentation.
Chris and I had a pleasant walk back to our building, and after about an hour or so, I headed back to Witherspoon with my colleague, Sarah, who was doing a similar Information Technology presentation to the parents (or guardians) of the students attending New Student Orientation.
Sarah doesn’t like to use a remote, so I advanced the slides for her, and then helped answer a couple of questions at the end. We had a fun walk back, too, during which we talked about strapless, and then underwire, bras. As we approached The Brickyard, I said, “You know what? I’m going to take advantage of having my car here today, and run home for lunch.”
We parted ways and I enjoyed a sandwich at home before driving back to campus.
I had a nice note from my boss’s boss about working so late to get that task done yesterday that said, “I hope you’re going to get out of here early today.” I so appreciated that even though I didn’t really take advantage of it, leaving the office at just a little after 4:00, with my colleague, Jen, who gave me a ride to the parking deck.
I met her and several other colleagues down at the Boylan Bridge Brewpup, where we proceeded to be over-served (at least I did) and have a ton of laughs especially when the group dwindled down to just me, Jen, Jason, David, and Laura. Good people.
After paying our tabs, I drove Jason and Jen over to the Krispy Kreme, discovering when I got to my car and went to put on my glasses to drive that they were still back on the table. A quick call to David and Laura, who were still there, had them in the hands of our server, from whom I picked them up as I passed by there on my way home.
We went to the Krispy Kreme because Jason and Jen specifically wanted to try their new, and highly promoted, Cheerwine Doughnuts.
Imbibed as we were, we didn’t take no easily, and for a moment convinced the girl serving us to sneak in the back and fill up the last three slots of our dozen with them. However, when she turned around to go back there, she said, “Oh, I can’t. All the managers are back there around where they are. I’m sorry. I can’t do it.”
I wanted to just let the girl off the hook and get out of there, but Jason and Jen were insistent and asked to speak to one of those managers back there. The lady that came up didn’t smile at all, and it seemed like she was tired of towing this line. She droned out the policy and towed party line telling us we could buy them at Harris Teeter or at Lowes Foods.
Jason and Jen insisted on walking back to the Brewpub, so I drove on, stopping by there to pick up my glasses and headed home, where I took an hour-and-a-half nap.
I met Joe at The Borough at 9:30, where there were no seats left at the bar, nor any open tables, so we joined Phil and Joe who had a place in the corner. We enjoyed one drink with them, and when their dinners arrived, we went back to the bar, since we’d started our tab there, and as I’ve noted here in the past, it’s a damn big deal to move it.
While at The Borough, I received a tearful voice mail from Donna, my ex-wife, telling me that her younger brother, who was like a brother to me during our marriage and who, several months ago, had been diagnosed with liver cancer, was being sent home from Duke and entering into Hospice care. This makes me so sad. He’s one of the nicest, caring guys I’ve ever met, and he’s only 47 years old.
We ended up just closing out our tab at the bar and walking over to Flex to drink more cheaply, but once in there we weren’t “feeling it”—I know I wasn’t—and we left after one drink.
I was home by 11:00, and I was so bummed by the news about Vince, that I went directly to bed, putting James Taylor’s Greatest Hits on my iPod in bed to fall asleep to.