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Recent News... Just for Pope Gregory... |
2002-03-14 - 8:48 a.m. Learning to drive the bus Susie and David brought us cookies on Friday. Girl Scout cookies. The deadly trefoils (those shortbread things - I can just much through the entire stack) and the tagalongs (peanut butter ecstasy). I don't buy GS cookies cause I don't need boxes of sweets. Those harmless looking things that are bad for my diet. 10 pounds so far. Slower than I hoped over two months, but I got temporarily derailed by the madness of a new job. Last time I visited my mom during GS cookie season, we broke down and bought a box of Samoas from the cute little brownies in front of the grocery store. We loaded everything in the car and tossed the cookies in the front seat. After we climbed in, we looked at each other, looked at the cookies, looked at each other � and ripped the box apart. Ate the entire package (15 cookies - we counted and split the last one) sitting in the Food City parking lot. Yes, we licked our fingers. Thjora and I had just opened my $8 bottle of Chianti (bought randomly cause it had a Manasse Codex graphic on the front) when Susie and David arrived. David and I managed dinner and music while the Thjora and the Susie managed to hem her curtains. David gleefully selected the Muppet soundtrack, added it to the six disk changed, and waited for random to take us there. The wine did *not* suck. Dinner was randomly invented based on group vote and stuff that was in the fridge - while David laughed at me for repeatedly apologizing that Damn. I just don't have anything else. Roland didn't go to the grocery store. We ended up with risotto, chicken cutlets in lemon and capers (cause that was the recipe in the copy of Cuisine lying on the kitchen table), and carrots (cause root vegetables survive fridge neglect the longest and were really our only choice.) Thjora: Ummm, dinner smells good - Susie'll be down as soon as she posts her diary. Hey, Roland, we all *love* being able to use the wireless internet from the sewing room. In the middle of dinner, random hits the "Movin' Right Along" Muppet song - and we all start swaying around the table. With a great sense of timing, Keilyn arrived just after cookies were opened. The five of us killed the Tagalongs and only left crumbs of the Trefoils in our wake. Keilyn: Hey, where's Roland? � Down at Kevin's doing things involving hot wax. � I so don't want to know Roland made it home just after midnight from the leather waxing/curboli/leg armor making/ gotta get this ready for Gulf Wars fest. (Me earlier in the week - You want to put wax and leather in *my* oven? � No, no, Kevin's oven. � Oh. Okay, have fun.) He was crushed that the Tagalong box (left teasingly on the coffee table) was completely empty - no peanut butter cookies left for Roland. Really good company Friday night. And I had the half a roll of Trefoil crumbs with ice cream for breakfast on Saturday. Spent a loooonnnng time chatting on the phone Saturday morning (Roland You ran down the batteries on *both* portable phones?!?! � Shut up!) � till it occurred to me I had probably missed Gina's call. (She wanted to do some sewing.) I phone her house and Katie answers: Mom has been trying to call you! Guiltily, I say, I've been on the phone a long time. A long, well, let me put it this way � if I was you, I would be sooooo grounded off the phone. But - ha,ha - I'm not. I'm an adult and I can do whatever I want! HEY! It's just too easy to pick on little Katie. I nobly refrained from telling her I had cookies for breakfast. Yes, I have a new job. Yes, it's the job I got over a year ago, but the government office of personnel management would release the offical offer. No, I didn't quit NASA. Let me try to explain without boring you to tears. Engineers belong to a home organization which maintains a certain technical focus. But, engineers are then assigned (matrixed - to use the buzzword) to projects that need their technical speciality. As of next Monday, my home organization/my technical focus will officially changed from dynamics and analysis to guidance, navigation and control systems engineering. For all practical purposes, I've been doing the job anyway for the past few months. Systems engineering is one of the most abused terms in the industry. But let me explain it this way. Someone has to have the technical expertise and leadership skills to make sure it all plugs together and works - and that we have all the resources we need along the way - and that everyone on the team plays nice together. Honestly, Havordh may be better qualified for my job than I am. Me channeling Havordh yesterday Everyone, stop talking and listen to me. ("Tom, stop whining about providing more power for the processor - just tell me how much it'll cost in money and mass. Ken, I know you don't believe their estimates, but allocate them an extra 10 MiPs of CPU for guiding cause you've got it to spare. Pam, I don't have the expertise to understand the what the optics folks are upset about, but I know everyone's assuming different stuff - so tell me who we need to get in a room to solve this.") We're all going to get on this bus and go this way now. Call me crazy, but I actually like this kind of work. Or maybe I just can't stand *not* living in an organized work environment. That's one thing that made my last assignment (Triana - shudder) h*e*l*l - no one driving the bus. And, with more power comes greater responsibility � and more promotion potential. Skip-to-my-next-meeting-now. � � � 
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