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August 15, 2000 |
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I made a point to get in by lunch today. You see today is Jim's last day in the group; he is joining
another group within the company. It's been fun working with Jim… as a
colleague, as a supervisor, and mostly as a friend. I said it a number of
times before, he is a gifted software engineer. Our group is going to hurt
in the wake of his absence. At first, we'll be too busy to think about it.
Next, we will have a firm grasp of how valuable he was as an engineer and
lead. Lastly, we'll come to understand that we will be missing his company
as much as his technical skills.
We had a lunch planned for him and there was mail sent out to the group.
We all gathered and talked about "war stories" from the countless hours we
had worked together. It's been over eight years since I first met him…
since he wondered into my office asking about the space shuttle Challenger
license plate I had on my corkboard. Maybe I didn't want to talk about it
too much, maybe remembering will make it tougher to see him leave.
Either way, I'll miss him.
I had an orthodontal appointment today with Dr. J. …no, not the basketball player. Pay attention. He really does go by Dr. J. The office was swamped with people, kids mostly, since this was an orthodontists office. They seemed to be running a little late. About thirty minutes late to be precise.
He took a quick look at my teeth and asked me to bite. I silently thought to myself that his fingers weren't close enough, but it quickly left my mind. He poked this and pulled that and then pointed to a couple of teeth. The told the assistant to de-torque these two. He adjusted the wire and did all the wonderfully irritating things that orthodontists do.
He did say they would be coming off during the fall. I nearly asked him if he cared to bet his life on it, but thought better of it. Actually, they don't really bother me… the braces. I just want to finally be done with it. And I feel a little foolish telling people that they'll by a certain date when they're not.
I get a strange message on my answering machine. The nature of the message is not that strange, it is more of the circumstances. It was the office of my optometrist; they wanted to confirm my appointment for tomorrow. Normally, I would think this is normal, except that I only made the appointment two days ago? Do people normally cancel appointments they make four days prior?
I went back to the gym tonight. On Tuesdays, I run and I also do weights. The run is supposed to be intervals, but I have not been doing them since my ankle has been tender, and now I have to deal with a couple of weeks of atrophy. Terrific. All in all, the run went pretty well. I wanted to make sure that I took it easy. Despite the fact that I was wearing an ankle brace, my left ankle hurt. Actually, both ankles hurt, but the left ankle would've been much worse if I had omitted the brace.
I then went downstairs to the weight room. Luckily I didn't have to drop weights on any of my routines. I did have to do less repetitions on a few of the weights, but again, we're talking about a couple of weeks of atrophy. That first trip back to the gym is the toughest and most discuraging one for most folks. I was more interested in getting back to the routine than making a real dent in the weeks of neglect.
On the way out, Martin, one of the older guys who works there struck up a conversation…
Martin: "We lost tonight… 9 to 0."
Me: "Oh, really?"
Me (thinking): "Who the hell is 'we'? Does the health club have some sort of team?"
Martin: "Yeah, some guy pitched a shutout through six innings or something."
Me: "That's too bad."
Me (thinking): "Okay, baseball. That narrows it down. He must be referring to the Mariners. Lemming!"
Martin: "We seem to be doing pretty well now that we have pitching."
Me: "Yep. That's how you win ballgames… pitching"
Me (thinking): "Duh… The Mariners past dismal years should be a good example"
I'm sorry, but that's very irritating. I'm not a Mariners' fan. If anything I root against the Mariners. Why? Because of garbage like this. I want my own opinion, thank you very much. I won't have you, the local news, or a multi-million dollar company buying my loyalty simply because of proximity. I'm afraid it doesn't work that way.
August 15, 2000