CafeChatNoir

I just emailed Abigail to tell her how awesome she is, and got this back:

Sweetheart seeing you made me SO happy. I can’t believe you took the time to do that. … I can’t tell you how good it was to see you.

Seriously, if you know someone racing in ANY kind of event, big, small, timed, fun-run, whatever, try as hard as you possibly can to take the time to go cheer them on - it REALLY does mean a lot.

Now I get it. For years, I’ve never understood why you’d want to do a marathon, especially considering that the first guy that went out and did it dropped dead at the end of it. Today I went and watched the Marine Corps Marathon, and while I can’t explain it, I do get it.

Wow. Just wow. I wish I’d had the presence of mind to take my camera along - that was a dumbass move on my part. There is such an insane level of energy, which comes partially from having 30,000 runners and 80,000 spectators, but it’s also just watching these folks DO this. Impressive does not even begin to describe it.

I saw the second wave start (found out that my friend started in the first wave, which would be why I couldn’t find her in the second…) - between the two waves are the racers in the wheelchairs. You want tough? THAT is tough.

I managed to catch Abigail (the happy insane one) at the 10 mile point, and again at 15. I even managed to see her cross the finish line - but completely lost her in the crowd and never was able to find her again. I’m pretty sure this is her 3rd MCM. WAY TO GO ABIGAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am freaking FLOSSING, just like the damn dentists tell you to do, and I manage to pop a filling.

WTF?!

No pain, so it’s not like I have to try and find an emergency dentist, but damn, that’s just fucked up.

And frankly, I can’t explain it, but I’ll take it.

Went out and did a bit over 4 miles today, and did NOT feel like throwing myself in front of an oncoming car at the end of it. Granted, it’s run/walk splits, but I got some good info from another gal on the training site I use, she’s doing r/w’s and consistently breaking 10 minute miles, so she’s doing something right, that’s for sure. Better pace than the last run, and that’s with almost another mile in distance. Sweet.

Because of this, I’ve gone ahead and registered for the Quantico 5 miler on 11/19 - I’d initially taken a pass on it, because I just didn’t think I’d be there with the distance, but I realized today I’d be doing that distance at that point anyway, so why not do it one weekend with a bunch of USMC eye candy? Want to finish it in 60m or less, that’s a 12 minute mile, I should be able to manage that.

I might have also signed up for a race in March. In Virginia Beach. With a 13.1 mile distance…

I only have to get through 4 more hours of work and then it’s the weekend. I can suffer through anything for 4 hours, right???!?

1. Pick up call from client who has talked to 3 different people already who have patted her on the head and sent her on her merry way. (Critical Error #1)
2. Assure her that you’re her go-to-girl on this now, and you WILL figure it out. (Critical Error #2)
3. Start perusing the problem. A scene from the Blues Brothers comes to mind…
“What was that?’
“We threw a rod.”
“Is that bad?”
“Yeah.”
4. Spend hours sifting through data, reading changelogs, getting nowhere.
5. Beat down various people calling to check the status because the call has been escalated.
6. Continue beating head into wall working the problem.
7. Start to wonder when they’re just going to fire you over this call.
8. Lose all faith in your skills.
9. Start wishing they would just fire you and put you out of your misery so you can go give that Holly Golightly lifestyle a whirl.
10. Whack people with yardsticks when they check for status.
11. Say screw it and go home on time, feeling like a complete failure.
12. Have dinner.
13. Take a 2 and a half hour nap.
14. Get up, still mad, decide you must do something to make yourself feel better. Realize it’s either consume a bottle of red wine, or go to the gym.
15. Go to the gym because you’re drinking tomorrow anyway and don’t feel like watching hockey with a hangover.
16. Complete some form of large personal record at the gym, get good and wound up and ready to lay the smackdown on the entire world.
17. Come home, fire up computer, recreate each and every problem the client is encountering, discover a few new ones to boot, none of which you’ve been able to do during daylight hours to date.
18. Send email to all who are “checking up on the status” timed stamped 3AM stating that the problem is going to QC in the morning because you’ve recreated everything.
19. Realize that probably no one will notice or care the lengths you went to on this call, and probably won’t say thank you.
20. Get in a few hours of sleep before starting it all over again.

Fear my mad skillz baby.

You tried very hard to beat the crap out of me today. Well, BITE ME. Cause I just went out and swam a full freaking kilometer.

So, though I may be a small person, and even deceptively cute at times, rest assured, I am meaner than you, more determined that you, a complete force to be reckoned with and I CAN AND WILL kick your ass, so don’t go tempting me.

No idea *how* this is actually possible, but OK…

So, the cleaning folks call this morning, say they need to come tomorrow as the car broke down - no biggie, this would only be the second time in over two years of using them that they have had to reschedule. I don’t think anything more of it, a little while ago I hear some crashing and banging about downstairs and think “Damn, WTF are those cats getting into??!?” Then I hear a “Hello?” which scared the crap out of me - seems the crew got the car started again.

In the “someone at the office has finally gotten a clue” department - this is cleanup week. Which translates to “don’t take any new calls and ignore everyone and just get your crap cleared out.” Granted, we can’t actually stop incoming calls, so we each get a blissful day to ourselves to do this. Me? I get two days… Possibly something to do with the fact that there are 128 calls in our queue, 97 are assigned, and 37 of those happen to be mine. Tuesday and Thursday are my days. :-D

In other work related news, I have actually put in for a day OFF so I can have a long weekend next weekend. Now if my manager would just email me back and say “Yes, of course, because we really would rather your head NOT explode” that would be good.

I have discovered that when I work 9 to 6, it doesn’t really get light early enough to run and be ready to work on time, nor is it still light enough when I get off work… So, looks like outside running is going to be limited to 11-8 days and the weekends. This means I get to go learn how to use the treadmill at the gym without killing myself…that should be some good entertainment. Managed to swim 550 meters last night *after* doing 30 minutes on the LifeCycles. WOOT!

Thank god for hockey and the gym right now - work has been just so downright screwy lately it’s good to have stuff I want to focus on outside the office, otherwise, I really think I would lose my mind.

Caps got shutout 4-0. However, despite the gawdawful performance on the ice, we had a TON of fun. The club level seats are totally worth it.

One of the refs took a puck in the face. Ouch. OUCH.

Out much, much too late, but had an excellent time.

4 hours 35 minutes til the puck drops. Shame Stephen Peat is still on injured reserve, but I cannot WAIT to see Ovechkin on the ice. The kid is absolutely phenomenal. Now if we can just get Brendan Witt an attitude adjustment and the rest of our defensemen to actually adapt to the changes in the obstruction rules, Kolzig may not get the crap beat out of him tonight. (49 shots on goal Thursday night. How the guy can even move the next day is beyond me.)

Man, I’ve missed hockey.

Oh Thank God It’s Friday.

Made it through the week. Just barely. As in, near tears and shaking at about 5:30 tonight from sheer exhaustion and frustration. But made it, nonetheless.

Hockey and Guinness saved my sanity last night - it was a VERY NEEDED break, screw the lack of sleep - you get to the point where it’s not like one night out is going to break you, because you’re just too far gone anyway.

Gonna go see the Caps play tomorrow night. *bounce*bounce*bounce*

– You’d think if you’re so flattened by the day that you have to stop and actively try to remember if you’ve had dinner, you’d be able to sleep.

– Reason #368 that the iPod has been a good purchase - it makes housework slightly more tolerable. However, Martha Stewart is still not losing any sleep over my existence on this planet.

– I seriously wish I had a better grasp on what is going on in the minds of men.

– Why do I have to be 33? I don’t feel 33.

– I’ve walked, run, swim, biked, and rowed for training 98 miles since July 30th. It feels like that number should be higher…

– I didn’t realize how much I really missed hockey until it came back. I’m soooooooo happy. :)

– There is a disturbing lack of red wine in this house.

– I cannot believe there are still two workdays left this week. Please, PLEASE let me make it to Friday with some tiny bit of my sanity intact.

– I really hope I can fall asleep here soon…

Because oh my god work is absolutely sucking the life out of me this week.

It’s bad enough we aren’t fully staffed and have pretty much zero control over the incoming workload. (Though I am considering contracting for a backhoe to come in and “accidentally” take out the trunk lines for the phones…) We still don’t have a direct manager yet (she’s still in training) and it’s just a flipping disaster right now. Queue management is basically non-existent, I am the go-to girl for WAY too many people right now, and there just aren’t enough hours in a day for me to get my stuff done AND help everyone else.

On top of it all, I have a call that is this HUGE G-DAMNED OMGWTFBBQ URGENT PRIORITY - that shouldn’t even be mine. I picked up the call, summary of “Followup to call XXX” - well, given that I didn’t have the original call, I should have just left it… But, whoever had it first wasn’t around, so I call, and as luck would have it - the client answered… That was the point where I should have just thrown myself out the window and gotten it over and done with.

Seems the previous call was prematurely closed. Problem oh so NOT solved. Client oh so NOT notified of what they needed to download off the web. Client oh so VERY FREAKING pissed off that up to this point they have already talked w/three different people and they don’t even know who they should be dealing with at this point. So, this is where I come in. If I try and refer this woman back to someone else, she’s gonna have a stroke, so there goes that plan… So I tell her “I am your go to girl on this now. You deal with no one but me. We WILL get this resolved one way or another.” So, I got *that* fire under control, or so I thought, and next thing I know it’s getting escalated six ways from Sunday and I am getting to tell Account Managers, Directors and Managing Directors that you can’t escalate past me - there isn’t anyone to escalate TO. (And frankly, I am this womans best hope at getting it resolved.)

So, I’m stuck with that little piece of hell, we’ve still got incoming stuff flying in, I’ve got other “high priority” calls that are getting neglected (it’s become a matter of “whose problem is most urgent in my mind” at this point, because I don’t have the TIME to work everything I need to work) and by the time the day was over, I was flattened. Completely.

I really would have liked to go to the gym tonight, but when you hit the point where you’re wondering if you’re going to crash the car on the way home, trying to do any kind of physical activity is just asking to hurt yourself.

Only two more days. Hockey tomorrow night, YAY. I think I will just find ANY hockey game to go watch Friday night just to celebrate not telling anyone off and/or getting fired and/or freaking out and walking off the job.

It’s not been a particularly stellar week so far…

congratulations. you are the kiss my ass happy
bunny. You don’t care about anyone or anything.
You must be so proud

which happy bunny are you?
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Pulled 500M in the pool after a full weight circuit. This is VERY good, I should be able to comfortably pull 1K+ in the pool by the beginning of the season, which will enable me to work on the open water training aspect of it without having to worry about the distance piece.

It is a little scary (in a good way) some of the stuff I have managed to pull out of nowhere in the training realm lately… I haven’t done any serious continuous PT since 2002 for the AidsRide. The weight training is coming along quite nicely, my swim form, while not the best, is coming back all the way from jr high swim team. Apparently bilateral breathing for freestyle is a big problem for a lot of folks, but that hasn’t been the slightest issue for me from the moment I got back in the pool, kinda cool to be ahead of the curve on that one. The running is coming along, and bike endurance is acceptable, but my speed still SUCKS.

Hockey being back is also proving to be a good thing for training too - get in training on the off days = watching hockey at Glory Days with no guilt. :)

or…Why it’s good to be a regular at your hometown sports bar. When you walk in so you can catch the hockey game & dinner, before you can even find your bartender in the crowd, there is a pint of Guinness at your elbow, AND despite the fact that it is Sunday during NFL season, they get the Caps game on one of the TV’s for you. Even better, the Caps managed to pull it out in a shootout tonight.

Speaking of hometown bars, guys, hockey, and all that good stuff - gotta love stupid wingman tricks. Friday night I am at GD’s, decompressing from work, watching the Flyers/Penguins game, soon realizing there is only one other person on my side of the bar watching the game, and he’s standing next to me. (aka Blackhawk for identifications sake.) Soon, we’re talking, watching the game, he’s asking that I please not beat the crap out of him should his team win, (why is that an automatic assumption?) wondering how we’d not managed to run into each other there before as we’re both there often enough, general good bar/hockey/Friday night talk. He mentions how his roommate basically lives there - as in literally does not buy groceries as he is there that often and has leftovers. (At the time when Blackhawk pointed him out he looked vaguely familiar, but now I realize, oh hell yes, I’ve seen him there TONS.)

We’re snickering over the fact that the guy to our left has bought half a dozen fruity monstrosity shots for a group of girls to his left (who are saying WOOOO way too much), when the bartender comes over and says, “Um, FYI, you two have shots coming.” Next thing you know, we’ve got a pair of Goldschlager shots, courtesy of Blackhawk’s roommate… Now, let me tell you, that shit does NOT go well with Guinness. I’m honestly not sure it actually goes well with anything. Why his roomie thought this was an exceptionally good idea is beyond me, but me being me, I had to pop over and ask why he couldn’t have sent something that went with Guinness a little better… Roomie tells me he’ll get me something better when I can prove I can do a fireshot. Oh dear lord. I know a wingman’s job and I can see this from a mile away, and I know what a fireshot is and I don’t want to do one…and I say as much. Good natured posturing ensues, he accuses me of not knowing how to do a fireshot, I explain I certainly do, and that where I come from, this involves dropping a lit match in the shot glass, watching a lovely light display, and chugging. Seems I come from tougher stock than he does, as in his world it’s just dipping your finger in the glass and then setting your finger on fire, and then putting said fire out by licking the liquor off your finger. Well, hells bells, I can do that.

So, I go back over to Blackhawk, laughing my ass off, light my hand on fire 4 times with no adverse effects, the rest of my shot manages to get knocked over in the process (oh, damn!), and Blackhawk pawns his off on a third party. Wingman’s mission not so much accomplished. Ran into roomie tonight (he really does live there) - wanted to be sure he SAW me doing the fireshots - he said he did and was impressed that I’d not lit my entire arm on fire as he had done once… I don’t even want to know how you manage that.

OK, off to bed, another week in which to excel or some such nonsense.

So, the little voice in the back of my head that was trying to kill me yesterday relented after I got stuck at work for an extra two hours and changed it’s tune to “You’ve earned beer & hockey, get over to Glory Days” - so I did. Best line I’ve ever got there: “You like hockey AND guns? Where have you been all my life?” But I’ve made a new friend at GD’s, and under the age of 50 for once.

The Kona Ironman was today - the big one - all I can say is that you have got to be seriously hard core for that. The first place finisher came in with a time of 8 hours and 14 minutes. He did the marathon piece with a 6:40 mile. I can only imagine what it takes to be able to run a 6:40 mile for 26.2 miles AFTER you’ve done a 2.4 mile swim and then 112 miles on a bike.

Me? I went and ran 3.2 miles today with a 12m30s/mile pace - and was happy that I didn’t want to hurl at the end of it - a fair amount off from last weeks 10m54s pace, but I went a little further this time and felt much better. (I had the distance wrong on the last leg of last weeks run - total mileage was 2.94 vs. the 3.2 I’d thought - the first 2.1 miles in 20 minutes was accurate though, so I don’t have to put away the iPod, LOL.)

Someone started a thread on the training site about ultimate tri aspirations. My only aspirations for Kona are to have my butt parked on a beach there for a week or two sometime in my life. :) But honestly, assuming I survive the sprint tris next year, I’d like to be able to respectably complete an Olympic length at some point. wants me to qualify for Escape from Alcatraz so he has a reason to go visit San Francisco again.

I slept in obscenely late this morning. I think I’ll do it again tomorrow.

I was THIS CLOSE to getting through this week with at least a tiny shred of sanity left.

And then at 5:07, I get a call.

“The person that does the payroll is out, and we need someone to walk us through it. We’re at the point of importing timesheets.”

OK, it goes import, audit, compute, audit, cut checks, create DD file, create DD advices, post payroll, post labor. So far, everything is erroring out…

EDIT: The call is now at 2 hours and 28 seconds… They can’t find a working printer.
EDIT 2: We are now at 2 hours, 40 minutes, and 12 seconds. We’ve got 10 out of 11 checks printed.
EDIT 3: Final time: 2 hours, 49 minutes, 52 seconds. I think I’ll be able to do the Virginia Run race next spring in less time.

So, Wednesday night I did a nice weight circuit and a very good swim. Last night I went and did 25 minutes on the trainer and then another good swim (little shorter but good to be able to pull out a couple hundred meters and not drown.) So, today I am feeling that a lot. No pain, just a “Wow, I normally don’t swim two days in a row” thing happening.

So, what is the little voice in the back of my head saying? “You should go swim again tonight. Little hair of the dog that bit ya and all that good stuff.” Nevermind the fact that I would likely sink like a rock if I tried it three days running.

The gym is also proving hazardous to the local wildlife, I just looked out in the carport and apparently I ran over one of our frogs when I came home from the gym last night… Why the hell didn’t he get out of the way??????

It’s a really good thing tomorrow is Friday. Unreal day today, and when it gets a stupid busy as it did today (major scheduling cockups left us way short, thank you management), I go one of two ways - beat head into desk, resulting in concussion or go into psycho bunny mode of “I am the best of the BEST, baby, and absolutely nothing can stop me, so you had better get the hell out of my way while I show you how it’s done.”

Fortunately for my clients and my company, today was psycho bunny day. It did require a lot of angry music and my beach hat, but I kicked ass.

Yet again, further proof you have to be a bit touched in the head to do this job, do it well, and like it.

Full weight circuit with several improvements, topped off by a best for distance swim. :-D

However, it’s a tad disturbing that my best workouts seem to come after going out and raising hell the night before.

Today is one of those days where I am infinitely grateful for working at home. Went out w/little bro last night, ended up closing the place down. I really should know better by now. Yeah, moving a little slow this morning…

Granted, it was slow because of the holiday, but the clients that did call in were exceptionally mellow. To a near frightening degree… But hey, I’ll take it.

Weather cleared up nicely for lunch, got out and rode around for a while, crap speed, but still nice to get out. Couple hills towards the end I was asking myself why I am doing this… Oh yes, good health, bikinis, men. Not in that order. I’ve never really realized how few flat grades there are in this neighborhood until I started riding it…

Courtesy fark.com: Did you ever wonder what it would be like to see a water balloon pop in space? I didn’t ever think about it until I saw the question, and then suddenly I really needed to know…

Maybe it’s the endorphins from the workouts, but I was thinking today about how I’ve kinda landed in a nice happy zen spot in my life. Work is settling back down, non-work is going well, things are good. Now I have to just make sure I don’t get complacent…

Fire Destroys Wallace & Gromit Warehouse

BRISTOL, England — The company behind the new “Wallace and Gromit” film said Monday its “entire history” has been destroyed in a fire at a warehouse containing props and sets.