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March 15, 2000 |
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Beware of the Ides of March.
I've always wanted to say that. What's funny is that I have a friend who's name is actually Julius Caesar
(middle name if you must know), but I thought that sending him
mail telling him to "beware of the Ides of March" would be in poor taste,
especially if something did happen. Although to be honest, I was under the
impression that the ides always referred to the fifteenth of the month.
However, I looked it up…
ides [idz] or Ides [idz] nounSo there you have it. It normally refers to the thirteenth of the month, not the fifteenth. Maybe I'll do a regular thing on the journal on the ides of each month. I've had an idea in mind, but you'll have to wait until next month to see the first entry… [Insert evil laughter here!]
day in Roman calendar: in the ancient Roman calendar, the name given to the 15th day of March, May, July, and October, or the 13th day of any other month (takes a singular or plural verb)
[12th century. Directly or via French from Latin idus (plural), of uncertain origin: perhaps from Etruscan .]
Encarta® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
I got into a little debate with my friend Brent yesterday. That's nothing new. I seem to bring out all kinds of debates. Some folks seem to think that I like arguing, and maybe to a degree I do. I like people to challenge my belief system. I don't like the idea that my mind has gotten into a comfort zone where I might start to judge before listening to reason. I like a good debate now and again.
Except that it seemed to me that Brent was eventually just saying things to push my buttons, not so much to follow any kind of logic progression, but simply to irk me. It worked too, since we both got a little hot under the collar. It ended by chucking a coin at him (not all that hard really). The only problem was that it hit him squarely on the mouth, which I didn't intend… and I'm sure hurt. At the end, we were both a bit irritated.
That's very atypical of me, to lose my temper like that. I suppose what really irked me was the fact that before we were both irritated, I asked him to stop and he kept on pushing. Not that I have any problems taking this from most people, but I consider him a friend. It stung to have him disregard my request. It felt disrespectful, like an intrusion.
The argument itself was actually kind of silly.
We had an informal meeting today. It is one that we have just to get in synch with what everyone else is doing in our immediate group. Half the time we end up talking about somegthing completely unrelated to work. As a matter of fact, during one meeting someone prompted me to tell the Miami vacation story. I cannot make this up. Truth be told, I end up missing it pretty frequently, mostly because it is a noon meeting and I'm not remotely close to being a morning person.
I show up to this meeting… a handful of minutes late even. Jim turns and exclaims, "Wow!"
[Sigh] Sometimes I get no respect.
There are some empty offices in my building. There'll be people moving in soon enough and the space is actually allocated already. There are this little signs on or near each door that designates which group gets the office, development, test, program management, etc. The administrative assistants are the ones who normally divide up the offices and thus their names were on the doors. Some belong to Brenda and some belong to Linda. Linda had gone as far as to make a rubber stamp that says, "This space belongs to Linda" and posting little signs like this on each door. Naturally, I was incredibly amused by this. I did see her in the hallway and asked her if she would make me one of the signs. After walking to her office, we had actually decided not to make a sticky sign, but instead rubber stamp my arm.
So my right, inside forearm now says, "This space belongs to Linda". I wonder if Pam has any objections to that.
I immediately went to show Brenda, who is actually the administrative assistant for my group, and she says, "Well, you actually belong to me" and was going to initial my arm since she didn't have a stamp.
I cannot make this up.
Tonight I got together with some friends of mine. They're the RPG (Role Playing Game) bunch; D&D to be precise. Since a couple of us quit the company, we decided to end the campaign. We had been talking about this for a while and tonight was going to be our final session.
I've been meeting with these guys every few weeks for a few years now. I've seen many of them move through groups and grow into different responsibilities. I've seen them become, first husbands, then fathers. It's going to sting a little to see these sessions end.
About the session… Most of us died, there were only four (possibly five) of us that survived in some respect or another. My character Kenny (name adopted from SouthPark), bit the dust when struck by a poison dart. I hate poison. That's the way his mentor died as well, only a few minutes before, by the hand of the same detestable little gnome. The party eventually got him, or more accurately he got himself. He fumbled one of his poison darts and managed to stick himself with it. I suppose a fitting end.
Even as we were finishing up the session, we talked about putting together another session. Some of us would continue playing; I'm sure some of us will stop, but we all wanted to contine in some respect. I suppose it is a kind of rebirth. The death of the old and birth of the new. I suppose all a fitting end… especially on the Ides of March.
March 15, 2000