Flares

We use a lot of flares in the Santa Cruz mountains... "we" in the royal sense of course.

Its a habit I picked up driving up and down the mountain road.... lit flares in/near the road means something blocking the road up ahead (around that blind turn). But its the burned out flares I see as I go up and down these mountain roads that are more interesting to the imagination. I see a burned out flare, then two, then three.. come around the blind turn... then there may be a scarred hillside, a telephone pole with extra duct tape holding it together... a fence down in someone's yard. Sometimes there's no sign at all but the remains of the flares. I have to wonder.. what happened here between the time I left for work and the time I've returned?

Usually I never know.

The best Ice Dance ever..

or at least unless someone improves on it this year, but so far no one has:
Torvill & Dean's Ice Dance to Bolero. I remember watching this when I was 14... I'll never forget it.

and yet.. she continued on...

Ever wonder when too much really would become too much to bear? I wonder sometimes when my endurance will fail, when the stress will overwhelm me and I will be reduced to a gibbering pile of mush. This was one of those weeks.

It started off in depression... the prior week I got chewed out and used as a scapegoat for telling people something they already knew and were upset about. I almost quit (thought quite seriously regarding how to live off my 401k, how long before foreclosure, how to keep our money if we were foreclosed, etc.) but I didn't.

So Monday was depression... but I made it through, got home, immediately did a Wii Active and Wii Fit workout, and felt better. Kiddo has a hurt finger from wrestling with a friend, but seem to be "ok".

Tuesday, depression becomes numb, I got to work with some of the field, which I always enjoy. Numb really is best case for me at work most days. Katie's finger was still hurting. Scheduled an appt for her with the local doctor, but the earliest they could see her was Friday. Get home, she says she's hurting bad. So I take her to Urgent Care at 8:00 PM. We get home around 10. No exercise, McDonalds for supper. Little sleep.

Wednesday, more numb at work, more meetings and headaches. Kiddo calls and says she will take the 3pm bus home because she needs to print her homework assignment. Then she calls... no 3pm bus... she rides a different bus to her friend's house. This friend lives about half an hour further into the boonies than we do. Pick her up around 7PM, go shopping for superbowl party, get home around 8:30 or 9. Had to work a bit after getting home.

Thursday, work.. numb... good interactions with field. Meaningless meeting about stuff that has nothing to do with me.. until I get a call from the school principal. Katie having trouble with another student he says. (That was last week's other crisis). Talk to principal... blood pressure goes through the roof. Principal arranges mediated discussion between kid and friend. All turns out well. Principal calls again and lets me know. Relief. Time to go home, open a soda in my car... sprays ALL OVER the car. Clean that up. On the way home, blinding flashes ahead in the rain.. turns out the flashes are a tree falling across the highway 4 cars in front of me, power lines down, no one going anywhere. Pouring rain. Call 911, fortunately the BCFD is only 1/4 mile away.. they arrive, cut the downed tree and we're moving again in half an hour. Get home around 8. More work at night. Thursday was so busy all I ate was a couple 100 calorie packs of snacks.

Friday, work... not so numb, not happy. For some reason the service I'm developing has to provide more than any other service.. and what do I know about what CAP-P is? I never heard of it... neither have you right? F*ck. The field guys have to leave. Lower half of my face feels numb and tingly for part of the day.. heart racing... probably just stress. Then I get home at 6, just in time to test a tool release and validate it. Finish working around 8:30 PM.

The high point of the week was the field guys. And my brother seems to be doing well.
The low point of the week was most of the other stuff. Not to mention I feel like crap. Sniffles and sneezing for days now.

Glad the weekend is coming up... work laptop is off. Personal laptop is on. Hubby will be back, SuperBowl Sunday coming. I'm not going to run the race I was signed up for tomorrow.. it will be pouring rain and I don't want to run in the rain when I already feel like crap.

Next Monday I'm going to work late. If anyone asks, I have a doctor's appointment.

And the rest of the players....

It's a small world...

A confusing looking board game. But you get the hang of it eventually.
The best part is spending time with family :)

One year + one

Happy report... one year down and no-recurrence of pancreatitis! I was actually worried the last few days that I'd end up in the hospital again. I had similar stress, escalation at work over the weekend, projected F'd up, etc. etc. But this time.. no hospital trip. All heartburn is obviously stress related, the latest doctor eval of my issue said some abnormal cells but they were probably just due to scarring from the biopsy so my next appointment is April. *fingers crossed*

Can't wait for 2010!

My job.. step by step

1. talk to the end customer
   
2. work with them to determine their requirements
   
3. go to the development teams
   
4. go back to the customer and figure out what they absolutely HAVE to HAVE
   
5. go back to dev and get commitment from them on when they can deliver what the customer needs
   
6. tell the customer they'll get what they have to have (not what they want) on X date
   
7. dev says they can't do X date (even though they committed to X date)
   
8. go back to the customer and tell them they won't get it on X date
   
9. go back to dev and demand a REALLY committed date
   
10. dev gives Y date
    
11. go back to the customer and tell them they'll get it on Y date and Y date is REALLY committed
    
12. dev teams say nope, can't make Y date
    
13. go back to the customer and tell them they can't get what they need on Y date
    
14. dev teams say they could give the customer less than what they need on Z date (Z=Y+6months) this time they're really REALLY committed
    
15. go back to customer and ask them if they would like some lube as they get screwed yet again