I hate winter

Despite the many joys winter brought my childhood, I remain ungrateful and generally disappointed with this winter's early wrath. Thirty-six hours ago it was 70+ degrees (and I was VERY grateful for that), so you'll understand my annoyance that it's presently sub-twenty-degrees with snow and ice covering the roads, with no improvement forecast for our immediate future. I must venture to work in bitter coldness knowing that most that I work with will instead be sleeping-in.

Though my workplace is closed today, we have customers in parts of the country that are quite non-closed. So the phones must be answered and the people must be helped. And of all my team members, I am the closest to the office, and cannot ask others to do what I would not do myself. Thus, I must traverse the roads that do not seem there, with hopes that my caution will not be voided by someone else's lack thereof.

Wish me luck.

Doing what I do best

Today I screwed everything up. EVERY. Thing. Well, almost anyway. It sure felt like it for a good long while. But those that know me well enough, know that when when I screw things up, I do so in a big way, and today was no exception.

First, the very long weekend caught up to me as I feared. So I overslept this morning and the kids were late for school, which I hate. Definitely not one of my best days as a parent.

Then I blew lunch, which became a 3.5 hour fiasco. FEE-ASS-CO. And I have absolutely no one else to blame but my self.

A former employee that moved to England came back to town for the holiday. And as has become traditional upon her semi-regular visits to the states, we arranged a lunch with her and the old team to catch-up and, in this case, put on a bit of a baby shower as she has been blessed with expected motherhood.

We were all supposed to meet at a specific place on the opposite side of town from our work location at 11:30, but because of a reservation issue, I changed it last minute to 11:00, which created much confusion all on its own (in particular because we could not contact our former employee via her international cell phone number). But once we were all settled in, we waited until 11:50 without our former team member showing up before we learned that she and her English husband were at a completely different restaurant entirely. But we had our food at this point (as did they), so we had to finish eating before we could even begin to rectify anything.

We only even learned where she was by extrapolation. She left a voicemail for us at work, and the phone number she called from was one digit off from that of a restaurant we had met at previously, so we called that restaurant and gave a description. Sure enough she was there, eating without us.

So how did this happen?

Turns out I, and I alone, TOTALLY botched the communication during the planning stage and so we ended up in different places. The email among the players got fragmented where I was having two different conversations, one with her, and one with the team. With the team, we set a place, and a day... Monday. But that didn't work for one person, so we switched to Thursday. But then Thursday didn't work for our former team member, so we changed back to Monday. But, all the while, I did NOT share the chosen location with our visitor. When I let her know that we settled on Monday, she asked same place and time? And I said YES.

But you see, she was wasn't in on the rest of the conversation. Her "same place and time" meant SAME AS HER LAST VISIT IN JULY!!! Whereas my "same place and time" meant the same on Monday as we had been originally planning on Thursday.

Ugh.

So after my entire team got done eating (we didn't even order or anything until like 11:30), we had to travel 25+ minutes back to the other restaurant -- on the other side of town, as in closer to the office (oh, and it started raining while we were eating) -- so we could spend the requisite time with our former team member, as to not waste her time, AND, so we could present her with baby shower gifts from the team. Of course, it didn't help one bit that on the way from one place to the other, I almost got my most crucial employee killed by pulling out into an intersection that WASN'T a four-way stop, which caused me to skid upon slamming the breaks on newly wet ground, nearly being hit by an oncoming car. G-E-E-Z, Shawn... WTF!


In the end, we did get to spend a good deal of time with our former team mate, though not over a meal. We gave gifts, looked at pictures, and watched ultrasound video. BUT, my entire team was non-productive (i.e. OFF THE CLOCK) for more than three hours, which does no good for our deadlines. Um, I mean, MY deadlines (seeing as how I set them).


So, we're all in agreement, right? I screwed up big-time? I dare you to argue to the contrary.

Return of the kids (and hockey)

I got the kids back today (they'd been gone since Wednesday... out of town for t-day with their mom's family). We met friends for a hockey game (first time [in OKC] since Feb), but the home team lost, and we were all pretty tired from what has turned out to be an exhausting weekend. And we can't even sleep in tomorrow... Darby has altar service in the morning.

Bond-to-bowling

I caught Casino Royale with a friend that hasn't gotten out much lately, so he welcomed the chance to be family-free after having spent the entire day gift shopping. The movie was decent, one of the more action-packed Bond flicks, though the mushy parts were also among the most mushy as well. Bleh.

My friend only had a slight reprieve, though, so he had to get back to his family while I met some other friends for a couple games of cosmic bowling (119, 155) and a few games of pool (one loss, two wins). Plus we got to interrogate the serious boyfriend of my friend's sister. That was fun. We literally spent most of the night asking every possible question we could imagine. He mostly passed. Mostly.

After the bowling and the pool, we found ourselves at IHOP for a couple hours. And so it was a third-straight post-2am evening for me (though I only blogged about the last two). It was fun and all, but I suspect this will catch up to me before the weekend is out.

four... ay... em?

I have never ever gotten up early to do Black Friday shopping. Never.

Today was a different story.

Except I only had five minutes of "sleep" (more accurately described as sleep-like behavior without any actual activity that would clinically qualify as sleep).

And we aborted. Much to my simultaneous joy and dismay.


I had promised my dad, who presently has an injured back and so is slightly immobile, that I'd take him shopping for Black Friday specials. Upon getting to his house after my late night out, looking up a few things (about the movie and soundtrack), and writing some of my blog, I put my head down for about five minutes before my dad's door burst open. Cah-RAP, was all I could think. I thought, previously, that I'd surely get a power-nap in. But no. No sleep for me.

Dad wanted to be at Walmart (UGH, wasn't I already at two of these in the last few hours?) by four in the morning. But when we got there, he couldn't get a straight answer out of anyone working there about the availability of the items he wanted (that weren't put out yet). Using a wheel chair to reduce strain on his back, he was trying to avoid having to sit in the thing long and further injuring himself. Plus he's impatient, which doesn't help. Less than an hour after we got there, we left.

But we didn't go home, mind you. We went to Office Depot, though it was still closed. Of course, there were BFCs (Black Friday Campers) with sleeping bags and such lined up outside. And we joined them for about ten minutes. But dad's pain and impatience got to him again. So we left. And I will never get that time with my mattress back. However, I don't think I'll have that problem with dad ever again. He's pretty convinced that the whole ordeal is entirely not worth it.

Stranger than stranger than fiction

Most things about this Thanksgiving day were typical. The food, the family (except I didn't have the girls :( who were with their mom), the football. All good, but quite normal, and as such would probably go without mention. Except that everything changed once I left.

Moments after I drove away, I got a text message. "We're here". Friends from out of town. Things were suddenly looking... different.

(paraphrasing for effect) "Let's do something" "OK"

We went to see Stranger Than Fiction. Not something I would have gone out of my way to see, though not something I objected to. But after having seen it, I must say that I was a fool to have held doubt. It is a GREAT movie. Different. A movie for which I will own the DVD. If you're anything like me at all, you should go see it immediately. Seriously. Step away from the keyboard, this blog will be here when you get back.

(welcome back, we missed you)

We liked the movie so much (and hopefully you did, too) that immediately upon departing from the theater, we went on a soundtrack hunt. Typically not such a difficult thing. But it was Thanksgiving, and many stores were closed.

First we tried Best Buy. Closed. But not uninteresting. There were Black Friday Campers (BFCs), and the parking lot was rather full with their cars (which led us to believe it was open).

Next we tried CompUSA (yes, they have movies and music these days). It was worse. If you can believe that. CompUSA was engaged in a Pre-emptive Black (Friday) Op. But we didn't know that until we were in the middle of it. When we arrived, the parking lot was completely full, so much so that we had to park across the street. There were news crews, news vans, and cameras even. We got inside, shortly after nine, to find a mob scene. There were people everywhere. Every. Where. In fact, we thought we might buy something, until we learned what seemed to be an amorphous blob of people was actually a line. That wrapped around the entire store. It was then that we discovered ComUSA's special Black Friday prices were running from 9-midnight, instead of in the morning. Our timing was terrible. So we left.

It seemed only Walmart was left to satiate our music impulses. Not my first choice for music acquisition (because they censor), but it would have to do. We weren't sure what to expect, given the scene at Best Buy and CompUSA. But we were pleasantly surprised by a contrasting calmness. Actually, calm isn't the word for it. It was dead. Eerie even. Not what you might expect for someplace that would probably be mobbed with people in not so many hours.

Undeterred by the strange lack of people, we proceeded to the music department, and as though drawn by fate, we found it. In the wrong place. We didn't realize it was in the wrong place until we tried to look for another. But even once we found the right place, there were no more. We looked quite thoroughly, but there were no additional soundtrack CDs. We got the last one.

In not so much time, we were in the car, found the catchy tune featured in the movie, and put it on repeat. Being a three minute song, I'm pretty sure we listened to it a few dozen times before the night was out.

Walmart was followed by Denny's. Not by choice as much as necessity. We were hungry and nothing else was open. Nothing. Even IHOP. Closed. Can you believe that? IHOP is not supposed to close ever! We were very disappointed.

After more than an hour at Denny's we had to leave to pickup my friend's daughter, as it was midnight at that point. Upon picking her up we learned that she was... HUNGRY. Ugh.

So back to Denny's we went. Though not without detour. We passed another Walmart, so of course we HAD to stop to pickup another copy of the soundtrack. Many of the same people that were at Denny's when we left were still there. But humorously none of the employees gave an indication they recognized us. Or maybe they just REALLY wanted to forget us. That's okay. I forget them by now, too.

By the time we finished at Denny's, got my friends dropped-off, and got to my dad's (more on that later), it was like two-thirty. What a long day. But worth living. Thank you, friends, for enhancing the memorability of the day. Even if it was a little strange.

The things you miss while at work

Shelby rode a bike without training wheels for the first time today. Can't believe I missed that. Well, at least she was with family. School was out today so she stayed with an uncle while I was at work.

MVP!

If there was one thing I didn't expect for today, it was to receive good baseball news in November. Well, it was pretty much the best news of its kind possible (PDF), and I'll take it. Congratulations Mr. Howard!

Holiday picture day

It's that time of year, so the kids and I took holiday pictures today. Will have them back in a couple weeks, so check back then for a peek. In the meantime, here's a look at the low-quality order sheet. Probably not the best pics we've taken as a family, but the girls are adorable as usual.

After pictures we saw Happy Feet, which was pretty good, if not a tad weird in spots. Fortunately I'm a fan of penguins in general, so I was able to overlook the strangeness. Plus there were enough funny moments and plenty of adorable scenes to win the kids over.

Okay, so I've started to Christmas shop, but I don't have to like it

It's no secret that I'm a fuddy-duddy when it comes to overly commercialized holidays (which means most of them). But I want my kids to enjoy their childhood, so I do what I have to do. Probably were it not for my kids I would just be a hermit during this time of year so I wouldn't have to deal with the crowds and other hassles of the season. But I am a parent, and as such I have to stay engaged, and it's that time of year. Ugh.

My level of participation in the shopping season has varied in the past. Some years I've done everything online, some years nothing online. This year I think online is the way to go for non-clothing, while I'll get clothes in stores. My online carts are busting full of stuff for the kids already, and all I have to do is click checkout, but I'm doing more research. The kids are getting harder to buy for as they approach and surpass the double digits.

I'm also making an appeal to family. My appeal is for family to spend half what they would normally spend on the girls, and with the rest of their shopping money instead make a contribution to the girls' college funds by filling out these forms and sending them in with a check (Darby's 529 form, Shelby's 529 form). There are fewer years ahead than behind when it comes to the girls going to college, and I'm getting nervous about it. Some family contributions to their 529s would help both the girls and my uneasiness.

Lastly, Darby is already busting out of her school clothes that we got her in August. Size 10s are just not cutting it. Size 10/12s are barely working. She pretty much needs size 12s now, but while 14/16 tops are probably fine, pants of that size... not so much, she's too skinny. So any help in the keeping up with Darby's growth spurt this holiday season would certainly be appreciated. Thanks!

Fenced-in

Shelby has been out of fencing since she brought home a poor progress report from school. Well, tonight she started back up again (since she was able to bring her grades up). She didn't do too badly considering the gap, but holy cow has that place changed in just maybe six weeks since we were last there. They must have gone through some sort of recruiting spree cause there were new people out the wazoo and hardly anywhere to park, which is completely contrary to how I remember things. But anyway, I think Shelby's glad to be back in fencing. I just wish we didn't have to take it away from her like that (but she doesn't really respond to much else).

Great day to steal the mail

It's rare that there is anything of value in my mailbox. I don't get much mail (most of my bills are now paperless), and most things of value I have shipped to my dads because he has a locking mailbox. So imagine my surprise today to find a new credit card AND the pin number in my mailbox today. Ugh. And let's not forget the multi-thousand dollar post-IPO dividend check that arrived today. Yikes. This would have been the worst day had someone swiped the contents of my mailbox. Sheew!

Just when it started to get interesting

If you've been following along, you know that I've been taking an Adult Catholicism class, for reasons which I'll not get into yet again. I had been going for a month when I missed my first session last weekend due to being in Philadelphia. When I woke this morning I actually looked forward to catching up with what I missed, but I soon learned that the class was canceled. Permanently.

Turns out that the priest that has been putting on this class in various parts of Oklahoma City for years, Father Paul Mollan, had passed away on Thursday, at age 79. There's a picture of Father Mollan on my dad's wall, because he is the priest that baptized my little brother thirteen years ago. He was the pastor of the neighborhood Catholic church until 1994, so he knew pretty much all of my local family. My understanding is that he and my step-grandparents were particularly close. It's kind of a shame, his passing, cause he seemed in pretty good shape for a man his age.

But since I'm here talking about him, I'll tell my favorite Father Mollan story. While he was pastor of the church, he was famous for his sense of humor and for funny messages he'd put on the church marquee. Also, he was a baseball fan. So, in 1993, when the Phillies lost to the Blue Jays in the World Series, what did he put on the church marquee?

"Is Mitch Williams Toronto's Most Valuable Player?"

Yeah, that got to me. And I had to drive by it every day for a week before he changed it. It was darn funny, but I didn't like it for a good long while.


Father Mollan, I didn't know you as well as much of the rest of my family, but I always knew you to be a good man and a quality person. I never heard anyone ever have a bad thing to say about you. I'm sorry I didn't get to finish your class, and I suspect no one will do quite as well as you in that role should they try to start it up again. I hope you have found peace, and with it the grace of God. Knowing that the first thing out of your mouth in any situation was usually a wise-crack of some kind, I would love to have heard your first thoughts upon crossing over. I'm sure you've got them all ROTCL (rolling on the clouds laughing).

Escape is the operative word

Took the kids to see Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, and while it was humorous and entertaining, the second movie was better than the third. I didn't find myself laughing out loud nearly as much for this latest version of the movie, leading me to believe that perhaps we should have opted for the kids' first preference, Flushed Away. Instead that will have wait a week. Or two (because of Happy Feet... penguins trump rats).

Uncrashed

Today was all about completing our recovery from crashes of days past. We are finally back to normal. Finally. And I am sick of pizza. Sick of it. Until next week at least.

Best school pictures ever

We got the girls' school pictures back today, and they turned out really well. Shockingly well, actually. Darby's pic, which she doesn't like for some strange reason, captures a good smile where she sometimes gets caught in a fake smile. And Shelby's picture is just phenomenal. That girl is so darn photogenic it's just not funny.

Also today Darby had an Honors Choir performance at school. They did a REALLY good job, though I nearly had to miss it when I was recruited to help get a co-worker's car started as I walked out of the building with barely enough time to make it to the kids' school. I mean, you don't want to blow them off, right, but really you gotta go... oy.

Apparently, it's crash day

On the way to the girls' school this morning, I darn near rear-ended someone in front of me who stopped short at a yield sign. At first I thought for sure I hit him. But I didn't, though I'm pretty sure I missed by like an inch or less.

When I got to work, we had a server crash in progress. We're talking the serious hardware variety that had the server down almost all day just while we were figuring out a work around pending the acquisition of new hardware. It was pretty ugly. The bring-in-pizza-for-lunch kind of ugly. And it's not over until we get the new hardware put in. So there's potentially more ugliness tomorrow.

If I knew ahead of time that we were observing crash day today I would have dressed differently...



(BTW, entries from Philly ARE coming... just not done yet... didn't have connectivity there)

Should I be dead? (Or should she be alive?)

I got word today that a woman I briefly dated back in 2004 was killed in a plane crash (PDF) in Arkansas last weekend. It's a shame that it didn't work out between us, but more of a shame that she had to pass so needlessly. And so I am forced to wonder if there was anything I could have done to alter the outcome.

If we would have worked out, would she still be with us? Maybe. Perhaps she would have been with me in Philadelphia this past weekend instead of in Arkansas.

Or would I have been with her in Arkansas and therefore now deceased? Tough to say.

One thing I know for sure, is that if there is a God, then Jenny is with Him. She was a devout Christian that always tried to do the right thing, and that always had integrity in mind. Rest in peace.