First 2006 Entry
Hello LiveJournal! Distinguished guests, brothers and sisters, ladies and gentlemen, friends and ... enemies
Well, it has been an extraordinarily long week thus far ... and it was a short work week!
So the week leading up to the Christmas holiday was pretty slow at work. It was not, however, "dead" like many of my coworkers had predicted. I think that's a good thing, from a business standpoint, but it didn't really lend to getting out early for shopping and all that. Oh well, they don't pay me to go home early!
I volunteered (sorta) to work the Christmas holiday this year. The rationale was that a) it was really my turn to cover a weekend shift, b) if I didn't do it, one of my guys would have had to do it, and that would have sucked, and c) if I can't leave the house (we work from home during most weekends -- although I am 15 minutes from the office if I had to hurry in) during the whole Christmas weekend, that meant that my wife and I would not have to drive anywhere!
So, because of point c) above, we had the whole family over for Christmas dinner for the first time ever. It was a little expensive, frankly, but it was SO WORTH IT to not drive all over the southern half of the great state of California. We had a 10-pound Honeybaked Ham that was just divine; my mom helped me make her famous mashed potatoes, yams and green bean casserole. All in all, it was a success until one of my brothers started a fight with Mom near the end of the evening in front of the in-laws. Gotta love Christmas.
The week in between Christmas and New Years really *was* dead at work. We were sending folks home early almost every day, which is a true rarity around here. Lots of reading the newspaper, email, and the like. I even got a head start on some of my training agenda for the new year. Good stuff.
For New Years, we went up to
polykleitus' and Penny's place near San Francisco to catch up with them and celebrate in the Bay area.
OK, I am such a native Angelino that it didn't even occur to me that the weather up there might be fucked up this time of year. Well, it was. =) But, incredibly, during our Friday afternoon drive up there, the weather held out until we got into the East Bay, and it had cleared up sufficiently by Saturday afternoon to make our trip into the city beautiful and enjoyable.
We had a nice party at their house for NYE, and I got pretty smashed. I remember passing out sitting up, another rarity, and finally retiring to the bedroom somewhere around 3 (I think?). The next day we made another trip into San Francisco, and came home Monday via Berkley.
Man, the drive back was a nightmare. The 5 was closed south of the 46 due to flooding, which meant that they were detouring people east across the 46 to the 99 south (through Bakersfield, which has the highest concentration of hip hop channels on the FM dial ANYWHERE).
I miss my NorCal friends. It was great to see
polykleitus, Penny, Chris,
heart_0f_g0ld, and the whole gang. What a trip! During the evening, Chris broke out his newfound hobby gear, fire poi and staffs. Although he was most certainly buzzed, he did not light himself or anything else on fire, and it was infinitely amusing to watch him breathe fire at cars as they drove down the street.
I do have pics, but they are not with me at work. I will try to post some later on.
This week has been nonstop busy. We are paying for all these PR and IR types who took the week between the holidays off -- they all sent in their shit on Tuesday, and we had people off on vacation, I had to interview people and literally couldn't tear myself away long enough to do it. So, they are coming back in! Oh well.
Hope you all had a great vacation as well.
Well, it has been an extraordinarily long week thus far ... and it was a short work week!
So the week leading up to the Christmas holiday was pretty slow at work. It was not, however, "dead" like many of my coworkers had predicted. I think that's a good thing, from a business standpoint, but it didn't really lend to getting out early for shopping and all that. Oh well, they don't pay me to go home early!
I volunteered (sorta) to work the Christmas holiday this year. The rationale was that a) it was really my turn to cover a weekend shift, b) if I didn't do it, one of my guys would have had to do it, and that would have sucked, and c) if I can't leave the house (we work from home during most weekends -- although I am 15 minutes from the office if I had to hurry in) during the whole Christmas weekend, that meant that my wife and I would not have to drive anywhere!
So, because of point c) above, we had the whole family over for Christmas dinner for the first time ever. It was a little expensive, frankly, but it was SO WORTH IT to not drive all over the southern half of the great state of California. We had a 10-pound Honeybaked Ham that was just divine; my mom helped me make her famous mashed potatoes, yams and green bean casserole. All in all, it was a success until one of my brothers started a fight with Mom near the end of the evening in front of the in-laws. Gotta love Christmas.
The week in between Christmas and New Years really *was* dead at work. We were sending folks home early almost every day, which is a true rarity around here. Lots of reading the newspaper, email, and the like. I even got a head start on some of my training agenda for the new year. Good stuff.
For New Years, we went up to
polykleitus' and Penny's place near San Francisco to catch up with them and celebrate in the Bay area.
OK, I am such a native Angelino that it didn't even occur to me that the weather up there might be fucked up this time of year. Well, it was. =) But, incredibly, during our Friday afternoon drive up there, the weather held out until we got into the East Bay, and it had cleared up sufficiently by Saturday afternoon to make our trip into the city beautiful and enjoyable.
We had a nice party at their house for NYE, and I got pretty smashed. I remember passing out sitting up, another rarity, and finally retiring to the bedroom somewhere around 3 (I think?). The next day we made another trip into San Francisco, and came home Monday via Berkley.
Man, the drive back was a nightmare. The 5 was closed south of the 46 due to flooding, which meant that they were detouring people east across the 46 to the 99 south (through Bakersfield, which has the highest concentration of hip hop channels on the FM dial ANYWHERE).
I miss my NorCal friends. It was great to see
polykleitus, Penny, Chris,
heart_0f_g0ld, and the whole gang. What a trip! During the evening, Chris broke out his newfound hobby gear, fire poi and staffs. Although he was most certainly buzzed, he did not light himself or anything else on fire, and it was infinitely amusing to watch him breathe fire at cars as they drove down the street.
I do have pics, but they are not with me at work. I will try to post some later on.
This week has been nonstop busy. We are paying for all these PR and IR types who took the week between the holidays off -- they all sent in their shit on Tuesday, and we had people off on vacation, I had to interview people and literally couldn't tear myself away long enough to do it. So, they are coming back in! Oh well.
Hope you all had a great vacation as well.