~Friday~ I was up on time this morning, and I caught the Wolfline #9 Greek Village bus on Gorman up by Avent Ferry Road.
I didn’t take any “buscapade” notes about this morning’s ride, so it was either totally unremarkable, or I was distracted reading Facebook updates on my phone, or possibly sleeping, on the way in. 🙂
My manager and I had a great meeting with our intern, Vanessa, this morning from 10:00 – 11:00. She’s been aggregating about four month’s worth of statistics on a couple of our communication venues, namely our OIT News (made available via email as well as on our organization’s home page) and via @ncsu_oit (our organization’s Twitter feed that I run), and did an analysis on the data to-date, which she presented to us today.
She did a great job, and we drew three conclusions from it, made some adjustments to how and what we’ll collect starting in July, which will be after doing it the way we’ve been doing it for six months.
I tweeted this after the meeting:
After that meeting, I caught the Wolfline bus with my manager over to Avent Ferry Road, where she went to the Avent Ferry Technology Center (one of the buildings occupied by part of our IT organization) and I joined Anna for lunch at Mission Joe’s.
Anna shared what her interpretation of a “rope top” is, and it made perfect sense! I added an “Update” paragraph to Sunday’s blog entry with what she said.
As hard as we worked to get Brad to klatsch before I had to leave, it didn’t happen. Missed you, Brad.
It’s rare that you get a glimpse of your own family from an outsider, so I was thankful for this Facemail from someone who has only recently friended me on Facebook, and is someone we used to live across from in base housing back in the early 70s when I was in high school, and who ran into my parents in Jacksonville last week. It has a bonus affirmation of me in it.
| Hey John, was in JVILLE last week, MOM and I were @ a pizza place off Western Blvd.
She started chatting with your MUM and I asked her who are they??? She said oh, that’s Pauline they used to live across the street @ Berkeley Manor, and then when I heard MARTIN i told your MUM we were FB friends, she said you are the most wonderful son. They talked about all their aches and pains, grandchildren etc, the old PX days. When they got up to leave your DAD said to say hi to my DAD. So when I did, my DAD smiled and said ole MANNY, he always had a good joke!!! He said it with a great deal of affection, CHEERS DEB |
I picked up Jen at 4:30 to take her to the airport. When we got about ten minutes from her house, the front left side of my started to make a horrendous sound, which we at first assumed was a flat tire. Pulling over and checking, we could smell rubber burning, but none of the tires were flat.
I suggested we turn around and swap cars just to get her to the airport, and then I’d drive hers back and figure out what was going on with mine.
As we rode, it was sort of excruciating, and it got especially bad when we went over bumps and slowed down. The former of that made me think that perhaps it was something to do with the shocks, while the latter made me think it must be the brakes.
When, I suggested we swap cars, Jen asked, “Do you drive a stick?” after which about I posted this Facebook status update:
Otherwise, we—or more accurately, Jen—would have been totally screwed.
We got her to the church (metaphorically speaking) on time, and when I got back to her house, I backed my car out of her left parking spot (of two for her townhouse unit), because she said she preferred hers to be in the left spot. I had decided to drive my car home and leave it at the AAA place within walking distance of my house.
After moving hers, I walked toward mine, which now had its front end facing me, and I noticed that a portion of this hard plastic casing under the front bumper was cracked and part of it was hanging down and touching (scraping like a snow plow blade!) the ground, which of course is what was causing all that racket. I was able to tuck the hanging piece back up into its housing, and I drove home with no incident and no noise. Whew!
I arrived at The Borough between 9:30, where I joined Joe, Chris, and Chris’ friend Jeff and a friend of Jeff’s visiting from Cleveland, whose name I have forgotten in spite of hearing it at least twice during the evening. He had incredibly straight and white teeth, and I thought he said he was a dentist, but Joe thought he said he was a dental hygienist. Were we drinking?
We were sitting along the wall, so not really at a table, and to our left sat Phil, Joe, Rex and Reed. As usually, that place was teeming with family.
After a few drinks there, several of us made our way over to 313, where this time after getting in free, I actually had a drink. I also ate the hell out of some free popcorn.
As usual, the place was just “meh” to me, but at least this time I was there with friends, so that helped.
On my way home, I took a walk though Legends, only because I could get in free, and I pretty much just walked through Legends, to the View side, and then out that door.