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Recent News... Just for Pope Gregory... |
2001-12-27 - 11:21 a.m. The Daze of Christmas Christopher Robin is gone. For the last three years, I have been working on a horrible project. Bad engineering practices, bad management, no cohesion, no synergy, time and effort waste on a mission that will probably never fly. Politics made this thing and politicis put it in a box it rather than launching it. But my teams have been one of the bright spots - the analysis team and the software team are amazing engineers who managed to design something that works, even if the project engineer changed requirements in the middle of our design review cause he could never be bothered to write them down. That's like a professor changing the premise of your thesis during your oral defense. The cornerstone of the team was one of the sharpest software engineers I've ever known, a wonderful guy named Ken. At some point during year one, I gifted everyone with their totem Pooh animal and Ken was dubbed 'Christopher Robin,' cause his speciality was making all the animals play well together. His first day on the job, Ken looked at me and said Hmmm. You really are, um, unambigious, aren't you? Ken kept his patience through a lot - Through the flight hardware team not defining their interfaces which made it impossible to read data from their equipment (he was nice enough cajole the information from them and cover their asses by adding extra data they needed but were too stupid to know it); through the data handling programmers refusing to listen to us about a floating point math problem (that cost us a man-year - they fixed it in a day once they decided we weren't lying); through the invasion of the plastic flamingoes in the lab (he used them as a hat rack); through his pool buddy deciding I was a practicing witch (I'm a Methodist, but I know something about Wicca so obviously �) With the project wrapping up, Ken's moving to Colorado for a year - an exciting new assignment. So, last Wednesday, we took him out for a farewell round of Mexican food. He saved a lot of people's lives when I was all for putting them up against the wall. Damn, I'll miss Christopher Robin. But he'll be back at Goddard next fall. I'll just have to make Martin buy me Korean food until then. Wednesday afternoon/evening was a flurry of shopping and cleaning. Tara came by to do a spot of sewing on her 12th night garb. I was not a good hostess and abandoned her in my sewing room while cleaned, cleaned, cleaned. But she happily sewed and finished up all her buttonholes in about an hour. Thursday was a loooong day at work, ploughing through the seemingly never ending test data. Must finish test data - then I'll be free of evil project. I was so wrung out with all the tidying at home at analysis at work and errands in the evening that I broke down and took Friday off. Ah Friday bliss. Sleeping late. Lurixating in a finally clean house. Noticing all the wrapping and decorating left to do. Sigh. Ignore chores and go see The Fellowship of the Ring. Foolishly stop for last minute shopping afterwards. Roland and I lost each other in Borders. I searched and searched and finally gave up and got in the line reaching back half the store. And grumped because I didn't want to go through this line again once I found Rob. Ah-ha! I have spotted him across the store. I turn to the gentleman behind me Will you save my place while I got acquire my husband? Guy looks slightly frightened by icily polite woman and graciously agrees. I storm off to retrieve Roland I don't know why you deserted me, but I am in line and ready to go and I couldn't find you and� You darted off the instant we walked in the store, and I was - like I told you I was going to - shopping for your Christmas present. Notice bundle under coat that makes Roland look like a shoplifter, realize I did zip straight through the aisles assuming he could still see me - takes the wind right out of your sails. Man, I hate it when I'm all righteously indigant and � I'm equally wrong. Wasn't it my turn to be right? At least the Borders line moved. Over half of our 'brief' stop at Target was spent in the slowest checkout line possible. The people in front of us were Target employees and argued about sale prices and employee discouts, which the cashier was too incompotent to get right. Then they forgot to get all the items out of the cart, so they had to start a second disasterous order. Then she forgot to ring up his soda � it was like an un-funny Saturday Night Live skit. Having had our obligatory horribly shopping experiences, including getting short with each other, we cheer ourselves by buying a Christmas tree (my year to pick - Oregon fir) and having a nice dinner at Harry's (local caf�). Roland drops me at home, leaves me surrounded by an ocean of wrapping paper, while he goes out solo to shop for my Christmas present. (After all that fuss, he didn't have luck at Borders.) So I wrapped all the way through "Mr. Holland's Opus." Saturday morning I puttered around at decorating and waited for Peapod to deliver my groceries. I had a coupon for $20 free groceries for trying their delivery service. $5 delivery fee on a $75+ order, is still $15 free groceries. Five measly dollars to avoid the grocery store parking lot and crowded aisles and clumps of running children and slow lines and bad holiday music. Yeah, I can try this. Official review: Their on-line shopping is easy to use. It won't keep me totally out of the grocery store - their on-line selection lacks a few things - but then not many people carry rice flour. The prices are comparable - but you have to watch carefully. Their only 'stew beef' item was $6.99/lb - I think not. But the sheer bliss of having someone knock on my door and carry in all my groceries. They use refrigerated trucks so milk was still cold, frozen still frozen, and the produce was better than my local Giant. I give an overall thumbs up. If I just save the service for larger orders to get the lower delivery fees, this is a lovely luxury. Worth $5 to avoid the evil grocery store. Saturday afternoon, we invaded Mel's new home, which is still in the moved-in-but-not-unpacked-cause-we're-painting-before-I-get-carpet. Took along the house file with all our flooring pricing and stuff, so Mel could compare. The new place is lovely. Oh, it needs cosmetic work since the previous owners completely neglected d�cor, but it's a great layout and a cool neighborhoood and paint is easy to fix. So's carpet and flooring - it just costs more. But she'll probably have her Steelers themed powder room all the sooner for having to redecorate. Mel's probably going to buy carpet very similar to ours, which makes me laugh. We checked out my carpet sample against her new paint and it looked good. Well, it looked better when we turned off the light with the orange fixtures - but those are soon for the trash heap. Y'all should visit soon. The alien tentacle lamp and the strange orange corner counter won't last much longer. The things people do to houses. We zipped over to Rags and Kymber's, leaving Mel to depart for her hockey game with Patrick. I made Kymber open her silly present - the army of smiley faced people, which were promptly deployed climbing all over the mantle, along the stockings and over the clock. Happiness - Violante and Mikhail were there too. Violante had been asking me about cotehardie patterns Thursday - she was looking at Charles de Blois's pourpoint as a basis. I only know one person who's made a pourpoint - and she was (a) a sewing Laurel and (b) almost in tears most of the weekend. Panicked, I have Gen give me references to send Violante and persuaded Violante to talk to Kymber for help. I'm thinking Violante is close to Kymber's size and can just borrow her pattern. And the really, really good news � Violante and Mikhail are engaged! They are cute and excited. And, cause they deserve to be this happy - Violante is expecting! What is it with my Shiremates and pregnancies? I've got to stop drinking the water. Violante said I was very cute over email, and did sound quite panicked that she not try the pourpoint. Kyna gave Violante her Twelfth night garb from last year which they modified into a Spanish style 14th century cote. Spanish style has a much lower scooped neck, as was demonstrated when Violante modelled the revamped garment, causing Mikhail to almost swallow his tongue as she wiggled and � um, bounced. To her credit, she wiggled more until Mikhail begged her to stop. Then, just to be really, really cruel, she leaned over. I love Violante. They had to jet, so we went out to Outback with the Kynarr, where I ate too much. Burp. Isn't that was the holidays are all about? Sunday morning was a decorate, decorate, decorate kind of morning. With the tree finally up (after the obligatory light problems - gotta cover all those holiday bases - Roland's year to pick the lights - all colored), the mantle and stairs decorated, the presents under the tree, and all the pine needles vacuumed up - we look Christmasy - two days before Christmas, but at least it's before. We spent the early afternoon over at Alan and Gen's for Christmas snacks and lounging. I cajoled Gen into letting me open gifts - Harry Potter ornaments! Excellent! I have to decide which ones to string up in the sewing room, which ones to leave on the tree and which ones to take to work. Bonus - we got a tigger and snowman Pooh ornament, so our collection grows. Evil Laura and I worked our way through a bottle of wine, with help from Gen - who looked smashing in her sparkly top, black mini and boots - but more practice needed with tall heels. She gave up after half an hour. I'm convinced if you want to be comfortable in heels you just have to wear them most of the time. We went home to meet Roland's sister, Darby, who came up for dinner and a house tour and too meet the new sewing machine. She is the proud owner of a Pfaff, and a really crafty person, so she's always interested in new sewing toys. I made pan fried pork tenderloin, salad and vegetable latkes. Never had latkes before. Not bad, but I think you need to practice to make these things truly scrumptious. They're sort of hash browns, only with lots of root vegetables. Christmas Even was spent in a wallow. Sorry, Kyna - dying project's running behind. Roland was so cute and snuggly � We built a fire. We made a nice dinner for two. We killed a bottle of sweet German wine (Spatazle? Ask Roland to spell/pronouce it - he's German.) with our peanut butter pie. Christmas at last! My friend Jenny sent us a box of goodies including the medieval Pooh animals, Sir Bounce-a-Lot and King Arthur Pooh and Smiley Face chocolates. She also included a t-shirt with the propulsion/compression equations and "Hey! This is rocket science." Roland filled my stocking with goodies and got me a lovely pile of DVDs and books. He is happily working his way through the new box of animee. Christmas brunch as Roland's parents, cooked by gourmet chef Darby. Spiced apples and egg souffle. Homemade English Muffins and bacon. Then, presents round two. So are you a paper-rippter? Or someone who slowly peels back the tape? I rip (big shock). Darby peels tape and careful folds the paper for possible reuse. Trust me, I spend extra time wrapping Darby's presents very nicely. After presents, we watched Chocolat, which I had never seen - excellent flick. Then part of the "Trading Spaces" marathon. The show is rather addictive - but I don�t like the new host, Paige. Bring back Alex! Presents round three begins when Oscar arrives with our niece, Jada. Then, we watch Shrek while Darby cooks Christmas dinner. She really outdoes herself on holiday meals and likes to do it all alone. Stuffed Cornish hen and vegetables. But the best was dessert - chocolate cake, garnished with tiny little mice. Mice with cute almond slivers for ears. Little garnish mice made of chocolate kisses and cherries, with the stem for a tail. Mice climbing over and around the cake. Oh, Kymber doesn't have mice like these. Christmas presents are nice. But family and friends are much better. Meanwhile, in Southwest Virginia, my nephew, Ryan, is running a bit of a fever. Otherwise, my family's had a good Christmas Day. But with sick child, they'll be coming up to visit on Thursday rather than Wednesday. Oh, good. One more day to make the beds and clear out the sewing room. Wednesday is spent at work finishing the (triumphant music) last test data. Done. Evil project is done. No more work on evil project. The music to 'Ding-dong, the witch is dead' plays through my mind as I drive home, giddy with freedom. So, today, I have nothing particular to do at work. For the first time in three plus years, I have nothing I must finish. Giddy. Decidedly giddy. I plan to finish the ridiculously long entry, then a long lunch, then leaving early to meet my family who arrives this afternoon. Bounce, bounce, happy, happy, joy, joy. Presents, round four � � � � 
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