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2002-12-04 - 8:47 p.m. When holiday penguins fly I leave the auditorium where my all day meeting is proceeding and make my way down the hallway to the restroom. Innocent and unsuspecting am I when - *suddenly* - a flying penguin intersects with my shoulder. Stuffed penguin, cute holiday hat, red and green scarf. Oh, sorry, I thought I knew you. (Strangely, I can respect that, since my former software team bought me only soft toys knowing my propensity to throw them. And, occasionally, hit whom I was aiming for.) I conclude the penguin gods are displeased with my doubts concerning their olive and egg penguin brethren. Out of the hundredish teammates from my project meeting, only I saw the flying penguin. This really does only happen to me. F*ck, I really am a nexus between this reality and the next. Day two of a design retreat that begin with our lead engineer stating: I see this meeting as a working retreat, a rest stop on the way to our first formal review, where we look around and make sure everyone is still in the car. I have four kids. I actually have to do that. The auditorium�s built in sound system screams like a banshee, giving bat eared people like me a horrible headache. So, this time, they brought in a freestanding sound system, so each presenter was given a mike. Not the cute little �tie clip� variety, no the full blown singer equipment. Now remember, I�m still limping around in that walking cast for my tendonitis. Ah, but my kind colleagues provided me a stool and hand me the mike. Hmmm, I say, On TRMM when they gave you a mike like this, you were expected to sing keroke. (Yeah, there�s more stories about that mission than the Monkey on the Windshield � like the Lobster Tail or turkeys in space. But back to today �) So here I am, from about 2:30 to 4 something sitting on a stool, with a mike, working through slides of technical material and demonstrating control concepts with my little lego model of the spacecraft, thinking at any moment I could deliver a really bad rendition of �Feelings�. � ah, but why should I sing (when I do it really badly), when I can do improv? Cause, then, I throw out my entire prepared discussion and went based on notes I scrawled down over lunchtime discussion. Nothing like rederiving my entire design on the fly. At least I finally got the scientists in one room and got them to articulate what they really needed. �Feelings. Nothing more than feeeeeeelings�� As a bonus, I spent the day telling everyone who asked that I ended up with the cast after fighting our lead engineer for a bigger resource allocation. Hey, everyone but them thought it was funny. I think the penguin was a harbringer of the predicted snow. Ah, look, my evil has found a purpose in Ealdthryth's duckie bathroom decor. � � Scribble to Theo previous - next �