*UGH* That was a looooooooooooong day. The night before, I’d headed to bed around 11 (slighly early for me) thinking I was bit a head of the game. Boy was that ever the wrong thing to be thinking. I layed down in bed and then tossed & turned for the next 5 hours without ever falling asleep. Finally around 4am, I got out of bed and dinked around on the computer until it was time to get ready for work.

I got to the office and after an extra strong cup of coffee1; I started hitting the program hard-core. I setup a spreadsheet to list off all the possible things I wanted to look at while testing this particular part of the program and went to town getting it setup. It was slower progress in the morning and I was still fairly out of it when my phone rang. No, no, no. You don’t understand. MY PHONE RANG!

The vast majority of my time at work; my phone goes unused. If my phone does ring 90-95% of the time; I know who’s calling and why. For my phone to ring unexpectedly is truely a rare and notable event. Being more than just a bit spacey, it takes me a moment to react and grab the phone. When I answer it; I get an even bigger surprise. The receptionist upstairs tells me that there’s an A.K.2 on the phone for me. A.K. is a friend of mine from back when I worked in the produce/juice bar section of the local grocery store. He’s way smarter than I am and had gotten married/moved to Portland several years ago. I’d only heard from him once since he moved and that was him sending out a note that he & his wife had just had their baby girl.

So to have our receptionist telling me that A.K.’s on the phone wanting to speak to me completely blew away what was left of my spacey brain. The receptionist repeated his name and I took the call. Apparently, AK was in town to see his folks, do an interview for a freelance writing gig and show off his baby girl, A. He didn’t have any plans for lunch and was wondering if I was free. Originally, I’d planned to take a short lunch and cut out of the office early but this was an opporunity not to be missed. I took him up on the offer and we agreed to meet at Applebee’s.3 I got there a bit before he did and was waiting around. I have to say that I was a bit surprised that he recognized me so easily, as I don’t think I had my beard when he last saw me.4

The waitress got us to a table and brought out a high chair for little A. She was the cutest little thing. Bright blue eyes and just a few wisps of reddish-blond hair. A.K. said she was just about 10 months now and then we proceded to get caught up on life, the universe and everything that we’d missed while he’d been off on the west coast. I also learned that he’d moved back to the Midwest; so I’m thinking we’re going to have to arrange some sort of get together.

A. was a delightful child to have at the table; heck, even the older couple sitting at the table next to us said so as we were leaving, mentioning that she was so quiet that they hadn’t even realized she was there. She was also very curious about everything around her, though she kept dropping her toys on the floor and at some point managed to take her shoes off. *shrug* Go figure. Fatherhood seems to agree pretty well with A.K. and apparently, he’s also now doing some part-time teaching at a community college near his place.5 Sadly though, I had to head back to work and he went back to… to… whatever he was doing before lunch.

At work I got distracted for bit answering some questions and was away from my desk; when amazingly enough, my phone rang again! I wasn’t sitting at my desk and totally missed the ringing. The only reason I know it happened was that my voicemail light was blinking at me. I picked up the phone, dialed into voicemail and heard one of my managers ask me to call her or my other manager back. First thought, *GLUP*! Second thought, what have I done (or not done) that’s gotten me into trouble. So I try Manager #1’s office first and she picks up the phone on speakerphone. Not only is she in there, but Manager #2 is and the Vice-Preisdent of Support6! Manager #1 was quick to reassure me that the VP’s presense was entirely accidental and had nothing to do with me. Then they told me that they’re going to pull me off the project I’d been assigned to starting next week. BOOYAH! I never particularly like working on that project because it was so far removed from anything I’d worked on in 3-4 years that I always was feeling lost. On top of that, the procedures were different from any other testing project I’d been on. Next week, I’ll go back to working on stuff that’s more directly related to my specialities and hopefully won’t feel like such a useless fifth wheel.

The rest of the day kind of flew by for me and after work was over; I hoped in the car and sped home. Only to find that Ariesna wasn’t there and a note was on the answering machine. She’d gotten delayed at school and asked me to call her. I did and found out that she was only just then leaving school. I think I was a tad short with her (sorry hon!) but then I was pretty exhausted and had been hoping I wouldn’t be driving that night. Alas, such was not to be and I got back in the car; fought through traffic, dodging around idjits that didn’t have enough sense to accelerate to interstate speeds on the on-ramp and rushed to CR. I got to the theater and found Ariesna had beaten me there. AWelkin and Bryon were also already there, and we all headed over to Texas Roadhouse for dinner.7 It was good, but I headed up switching my dinner with Ariesna; as the salad she ordered comes with an ingredient on it that she’s allergic too. Then we headed back to the theater to see
The Incredibiles!

As we were walking over, Bryon mentioned that there was supposed to be a new Pixar short film included with the Incredibles and he made some comment about how we’d never see the English version of that short film as we had at the Ghibli Museum in Japan. I mention this now to poke just a little bit of fun at Bryon because once they movie started; we found that the “new, short film” wasn’t so new to those of us who’d gone on that Japan trip. *grin* For the record, the jokes were easier to follow in the English version but it was also funny when the only work in the short that I knew was jackolope.

Once that was over with, the main event started and I have to say that the movie had be from moment 1. The style of the animation, the voice-acting, the music. the script were all just amazing! The major characters were all wonderful but it was some of the side characters that really made the movie. Ariesna & AWelkin both liked Edna ‘E’ Mode but for me it was the guards on the villian’s island. They were perfect representations of Faceless Minions. 🙂

Of course, then there were things in the movie that poked fun at the superhero genre that just cracked me up (e.g. monologing). HAHAHAHAHA!!!! 😀

I give the movie a perfect score of 5/5 stars and highly recommend that everybody see it!

1 Ok, let’s be honest. I didn’t get much of anything done until after an extra strong cup of coffee and hitting up some news sites that morning.
2 I might have mentioned this before, but I don’t generally post people’s real names on this blog unless they’ve said it’s okay to do so. Hence, A.K. has a real name but all you’re getting here is his initials.
3 And no, we weren’t going there for the lizard salad. If you don’t understand this footnote; leave a comment saying so and I’ll reply with an explanation.
4 On the other hand, I was the only person waiting there and I stand 6’5″; so maybe it’s not all that surprising.
5 I should have told him that if he needs to come back to our area that I know people in our community college’s English department; who might be able to help him out. *grin*
6 Last I knew, my department technically falls within that VP’s jurisdiction.
7 Food is good. Service is better (helps that many of the workers know AWelkin & Bryon). Free peanuts is fun but the play country music 90% of the time. *ugh*

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