Thirteen Days in Review
Thirteen days, must be my new record for not blogging. Life’s been handing me lemons and I’m not refreshed by the lemonade that I’m apparently making. Work has been extremely hectic, with multiple projects consuming sixty to seventy hours a week. The previous Saturday I spent the night working from the office between 8:30pm and 2:00am. When not working from the office I’m working from home. Worse yet, I got stricken with a horrible head cold graciously provided by Jessica. This is just a brief synopsis of those thirteen days; I’ll elaborate shortly.
I sat through three days of IBM AIX training. It wasn’t great; the instructor was fine but didn’t have the servers prepared. During the labs, half the class was able to finish while the other half, which I was part of, was unable to do anything. Instead of the instructor dismissing the class Tuesday evening and work on resolving the issues, he let it continue into Wednesday. While trying to learn something new, my cell phone never stopped ringing. Every call was the office; I never got a break. Five hour into the class on Thursday, my phone rang. The voice on the other end made it very clear that “I was needed in the office immediately.” Looks like I’ll be reading a lot while in Germany.
My company decided to make my direct flight to Germany indirect. I’ll be flying from Denver to Detroit, Detroit to Düsseldorf, and worse, it’ll be in coach. My original plans were to fly March 29, arrive March 30, and start working March 31. Instead, saving the company $600, I’ll fly March 28, arrive March 29, hang out in the city March 30, and then begin work on March 31. With the hotel being $200 a night, meals totaling $100 a day, the inconvenience to family, and myself, wouldn’t it be better to let me leave as originally planned?
Rascal, our beloved fifteen-year-old cat, died last Sunday morning. We came home from a fun day of shopping, eating, and enjoying each other to Rascal laying on the living room floor, unable to stand or walk, crying in pain. It looked like he had a stroke, we thought it would pass, it didn’t. Finally, at 4am Sunday, I took Rascal to the veterinarian. We couldn’t do anything. Putting him to sleep was our only option. It’s sad and painful; I really hated doing it. Jessica and I cried a lot, we both miss him terribly. Although he was old, he still played with the other cats, still acted like a kitten when he could, and was always vocal when things weren’t his way throughout the house. I love the little guy and miss him. I hope he’s in a better place-the great liter-box in the sky chasing mice-birdies.
It’s been an interesting two weeks. I wouldn’t say it was horrible, it was definitely sad with the passing of Rascal. Work continues to be busy. It’d be nice to have some semblance of normalcy; maybe that’ll be this summer. I’m hoping this summer will be rainy and mild. Hot, dry, and miserable summers are the worst in Colorado.