another crazy road week
Monday morning was the usual conference calls, then took it easy in the afternoon then got packed up. Wasn't quite sure where I was going to be all week (besides west palm beach on tuesday) so I packed for an entire week. Headed over to Mark+Johns at dinnertime and we took 2 cars down to this new orleans restaurant in Maitland that they had a coupon for. I just think I don't enjoy New Orleans cuisine, cuz there really wasn't much on the menu for me. and my is it all fatty. So after that I drove on down to Palm Beach Gardens, got into the courtyard after 10 and crashed for the night. Tuesday I got up at a decent hour since I didn't have to be at the account til 10...that went fine even though they were only able to pay for 4 hours of work. Heh it's funny I have 2 billing calls every year, one of them is this account at the VA in west palm and the other is cryocell in tampa. So I did 2 hours, had lunch and did another 2 and actually did about 1/2 hour over that even though I didn't charge em for it. they have a limit of $3000 so I had to keep it under that *shrug* so they got a bit of freebee. Otherwise was easy just training some people better on the FC since the regular operator is out and adjusted thier settings. Got done and took off for home, got home by dinner time and so that was good. I knew I would probably have to go back to FtMyers in the morning but I wanted the extra night at home. I also spent an hour+doing emails and paperwork alot of scheduling to handle. So much for my week at home, since I was now scheduled to hit both FtMyers on wed and miami on thurs *sigh*
Wednesday I woke up and hit the road, got down to FtMyers around 12:30 and engineer Dave had just finished fixing the new unit I set up last week...turns out it really did have a problem but he fixed it, although that means that I would have to re-do my settings. we grabbed lunch and then I got to work. knowing how much the operator there is a perfectionist I really worked at it so didn't get done adjusting things until almost 7pm ughh. Stopped for dinner at the Carrabba's there and then drove on over to Miami Lakes. hit the courtyard there around 10 and rats still under construction.
Thursday I tried to get an early start but the traffic was a bitch as usual getting over to the UM medical campus so I didn't get there until 9. Spent the morning troubleshooting a report issue in the 7th floor lab and then went up to the 8th floor lab to make thier qc files that I forgot to make for thier new assay last time. of course I had emailed and asked for them to have the setup tubes prepped which they didnt so that cost me an hour plus while I waited for that to be done. thankfully once they were ready I got it done quickly on all three of thier units. then I went back to the 7th floor and they had another issue jeez. I stopped to take a lunch break and then went back to setup a backup for them at the platelet lab down the hall. Finally got out the door by 3 and was able to make it home for dinner by 6:30. boy was I tired though. thursday night the rains started as well so in the middle of the night I had to go and get in the guest bed cuz the frogs started up. argh!!
Friday I got up at 8:30 and got going with my day. Spent about 2 hours in the morning working on catching up on paperwork and booking some upcoming trips, including now instead of Denver I have to go out to Tacoma, WA and coach chris on a gallios install...like the week after Bugzi is here in Orlando LOL! Unfortunately he and JT live on the opposite side of the city from where I'll be, and JR will be in Europe so not alot of fun visits like last time. Oh and Cathy the georgia sales rep is pissing me off with this demo in Atlanta...I swear if she keeps being so annoying I won't do anymore of them for her. Well I finished up the morning and John called and wanted to do lunch so I headed over to thier house, met up with Mark and John, Jim was there of course and so was Scotty from FtMyers...hadn't seen him in a while. We went to lunch and then everyone was just hanging around so I left around 2 and went to home depot-fuckin some animal shredded my leaf skimmer net so I had to get a new one wtf?! unfortunately the rains were really going by then...looks like this is our "no-name" tropical system this year. its sure dumping some rain. I spent the rest of the afternoon getting caught up on all my usual stuff and then made myself dinner. After dinner I got in the mood to get stuff done so got the house cleaned for the upcoming house guests and then managed to get in a good much needed run during a break in the rain. Watching the premier of Sanctuary which was pretty good, then fell into bed.
Saturday the rains were just being torrential man was this non-storm dumping buckets of rain!!! Spent the morning and afternoon doing more stuff around the house then went on back over to Johns around 4. The 5 of us drove the pain-in-the-ass drive over to David+Keiths place for their (one year late) houswarming party. man can they not throw a party....esp not having any mixers for drinks O-o I finally took pity on Keith trying to make a pina colada by reading the directions and made it for him. heh. Thier little miniature daschund was cute. Saw Piggy and Sean too so that was good. We beat it after an hour or two and went to the polish restaurant for dinner...good food but man with all the rain things were really flooding out. Got back to thier place and hung for a bit...John was in one of his moods so he gave me a bunch of his dive gear including a really nice rolling bag. *shrug* better me than a stranger I guess. So I went home and watched the finale of Warehouse13 and a couple of other things before bed.
Sunday I got up and tried to get the rest of my things done with the house before the guests arrive. Got myself packed for the week. did the dishes. Got a break (ie the rain slacked off) before lunch and managed to take care of the pool somewhat...at least dumped chemicals in it and gave the filter a quickie cleaning. Had some polish leftovers for lunch and then ran to Publix to food shop. got that done in record time at least. Did a few more things and by then it was 3 so I watched some TV and had a sandwich. Mark and John arrived around 4 and we headed off for the Give Kids Village. I was a bit nervous cuz both Ray and Peter were out of town and they asked me to lead the group...which was a first for me. So we got there early and got a good start on getting things set up. Nancy was working the kitchen since Chef Dave was out of town so that made me a little more nervous heh. But we had a good turnout of the usual gang which made me feel better since they all know what to do. We were supposed to have an outside group of 7 but they were late. So I got all the stations assigned and we got rolling. The extra group showed up 20 min after opening so I just had them all bus tables after I explained it. Then we got Slammed! All of a sudden people were rolling through the door and I barely kept up with the food running and handling misc issues. Thankfully Mark and John were serving on one side and they know where to run to get most of the stuff when I wasn't able to keep up. Between that and coordinating with the kitchen it was about 40 minutes of total madness before it let up and we could catch up and catch our breaths. then it really died down, in the second hour we closed down the back side at 7:30 and did not have a family in the place for the last 15 minutes. Then of course at 7:58pm two families walked through the doors ughh so I had to yell back to mark+john to put the food back out and we left 2 tables out front on one side for them. The good thing was that the group had already gotten the entire back side of the tables cleaned and they were waiting to tackle the front as soon as 8 hit. But we still cleaned the other side and the families did not linger so we were out the door by 8:40...though we woulda been out by 8:15 if they hadn't walked in. Turns out we did 200 plates in the first hour (!!!) and 265 all told so yeah the second hour was dead by comparison. All in all I think it went well, I got good feedback from the group about the job I did and also from Nancy as well as the outside group. :-) Before I could even get to it John txt'd Peter that it went well heh cuz he had just landed from Ireland. Oh yeah funny thing at the start of the night Nancy asked me if I was related to Peter cuz I had the same mannerisms (as a compliment). All I could say was that we were both from the same area (new york) heh. I want to say it's more a testament to what an excellent group of volunteers we have...everyone knows what to do and pitches in to get it done in the best way possible. And having run the group on my own now I have a much better empathy for what Ray and Peter do...and I'm honored that they thought I was up to the task of filling in for them. :-) So we left, John and Mark dropped me off at home and I ate a small pot pie for dinner at 10pm.
Tomorrow I have to be off to Tampa in the morning, gotta be there by noon to get a head start on the Gallios demo for the week. And then Bugzi and JT arrive on tuesday so i have to come back over to let them into the house and get them settled in. Then I'll be back on thursday after work and we're going to Halloween Horror Nights, and then who knows what else. gonna be just as hella busy for the next couple of weeks!
Wednesday I woke up and hit the road, got down to FtMyers around 12:30 and engineer Dave had just finished fixing the new unit I set up last week...turns out it really did have a problem but he fixed it, although that means that I would have to re-do my settings. we grabbed lunch and then I got to work. knowing how much the operator there is a perfectionist I really worked at it so didn't get done adjusting things until almost 7pm ughh. Stopped for dinner at the Carrabba's there and then drove on over to Miami Lakes. hit the courtyard there around 10 and rats still under construction.
Thursday I tried to get an early start but the traffic was a bitch as usual getting over to the UM medical campus so I didn't get there until 9. Spent the morning troubleshooting a report issue in the 7th floor lab and then went up to the 8th floor lab to make thier qc files that I forgot to make for thier new assay last time. of course I had emailed and asked for them to have the setup tubes prepped which they didnt so that cost me an hour plus while I waited for that to be done. thankfully once they were ready I got it done quickly on all three of thier units. then I went back to the 7th floor and they had another issue jeez. I stopped to take a lunch break and then went back to setup a backup for them at the platelet lab down the hall. Finally got out the door by 3 and was able to make it home for dinner by 6:30. boy was I tired though. thursday night the rains started as well so in the middle of the night I had to go and get in the guest bed cuz the frogs started up. argh!!
Friday I got up at 8:30 and got going with my day. Spent about 2 hours in the morning working on catching up on paperwork and booking some upcoming trips, including now instead of Denver I have to go out to Tacoma, WA and coach chris on a gallios install...like the week after Bugzi is here in Orlando LOL! Unfortunately he and JT live on the opposite side of the city from where I'll be, and JR will be in Europe so not alot of fun visits like last time. Oh and Cathy the georgia sales rep is pissing me off with this demo in Atlanta...I swear if she keeps being so annoying I won't do anymore of them for her. Well I finished up the morning and John called and wanted to do lunch so I headed over to thier house, met up with Mark and John, Jim was there of course and so was Scotty from FtMyers...hadn't seen him in a while. We went to lunch and then everyone was just hanging around so I left around 2 and went to home depot-fuckin some animal shredded my leaf skimmer net so I had to get a new one wtf?! unfortunately the rains were really going by then...looks like this is our "no-name" tropical system this year. its sure dumping some rain. I spent the rest of the afternoon getting caught up on all my usual stuff and then made myself dinner. After dinner I got in the mood to get stuff done so got the house cleaned for the upcoming house guests and then managed to get in a good much needed run during a break in the rain. Watching the premier of Sanctuary which was pretty good, then fell into bed.
Saturday the rains were just being torrential man was this non-storm dumping buckets of rain!!! Spent the morning and afternoon doing more stuff around the house then went on back over to Johns around 4. The 5 of us drove the pain-in-the-ass drive over to David+Keiths place for their (one year late) houswarming party. man can they not throw a party....esp not having any mixers for drinks O-o I finally took pity on Keith trying to make a pina colada by reading the directions and made it for him. heh. Thier little miniature daschund was cute. Saw Piggy and Sean too so that was good. We beat it after an hour or two and went to the polish restaurant for dinner...good food but man with all the rain things were really flooding out. Got back to thier place and hung for a bit...John was in one of his moods so he gave me a bunch of his dive gear including a really nice rolling bag. *shrug* better me than a stranger I guess. So I went home and watched the finale of Warehouse13 and a couple of other things before bed.
Sunday I got up and tried to get the rest of my things done with the house before the guests arrive. Got myself packed for the week. did the dishes. Got a break (ie the rain slacked off) before lunch and managed to take care of the pool somewhat...at least dumped chemicals in it and gave the filter a quickie cleaning. Had some polish leftovers for lunch and then ran to Publix to food shop. got that done in record time at least. Did a few more things and by then it was 3 so I watched some TV and had a sandwich. Mark and John arrived around 4 and we headed off for the Give Kids Village. I was a bit nervous cuz both Ray and Peter were out of town and they asked me to lead the group...which was a first for me. So we got there early and got a good start on getting things set up. Nancy was working the kitchen since Chef Dave was out of town so that made me a little more nervous heh. But we had a good turnout of the usual gang which made me feel better since they all know what to do. We were supposed to have an outside group of 7 but they were late. So I got all the stations assigned and we got rolling. The extra group showed up 20 min after opening so I just had them all bus tables after I explained it. Then we got Slammed! All of a sudden people were rolling through the door and I barely kept up with the food running and handling misc issues. Thankfully Mark and John were serving on one side and they know where to run to get most of the stuff when I wasn't able to keep up. Between that and coordinating with the kitchen it was about 40 minutes of total madness before it let up and we could catch up and catch our breaths. then it really died down, in the second hour we closed down the back side at 7:30 and did not have a family in the place for the last 15 minutes. Then of course at 7:58pm two families walked through the doors ughh so I had to yell back to mark+john to put the food back out and we left 2 tables out front on one side for them. The good thing was that the group had already gotten the entire back side of the tables cleaned and they were waiting to tackle the front as soon as 8 hit. But we still cleaned the other side and the families did not linger so we were out the door by 8:40...though we woulda been out by 8:15 if they hadn't walked in. Turns out we did 200 plates in the first hour (!!!) and 265 all told so yeah the second hour was dead by comparison. All in all I think it went well, I got good feedback from the group about the job I did and also from Nancy as well as the outside group. :-) Before I could even get to it John txt'd Peter that it went well heh cuz he had just landed from Ireland. Oh yeah funny thing at the start of the night Nancy asked me if I was related to Peter cuz I had the same mannerisms (as a compliment). All I could say was that we were both from the same area (new york) heh. I want to say it's more a testament to what an excellent group of volunteers we have...everyone knows what to do and pitches in to get it done in the best way possible. And having run the group on my own now I have a much better empathy for what Ray and Peter do...and I'm honored that they thought I was up to the task of filling in for them. :-) So we left, John and Mark dropped me off at home and I ate a small pot pie for dinner at 10pm.
Tomorrow I have to be off to Tampa in the morning, gotta be there by noon to get a head start on the Gallios demo for the week. And then Bugzi and JT arrive on tuesday so i have to come back over to let them into the house and get them settled in. Then I'll be back on thursday after work and we're going to Halloween Horror Nights, and then who knows what else. gonna be just as hella busy for the next couple of weeks!