This week is especially short for me though.  Not only did I have yesterday off as a holiday, I am taking Friday off as a vacation day to go on the float/camping trip.  Some vacation day that will be too.  I will have to get up before the sun even wakes up to get my kit together and drive to my friends house.  He offered to come by and pick me up but honestly that is a BAD idea.  The dogs go crazy when anyone comes around the house.  If Kira was startled awake at 5:30am by insane dog barking, I’m afraid that would mean a very long and unpleasant day for both her and Michelle.  And she thinks I don’t think about her.  Pbbpttbt….

Did you see this article?  A guy in Arizona wears animal masks to and from work every day in order to get out of paying tickets from the photo-enforcement division.  Clever I suppose.  Well, until they start staking out his house.  Hehe.  Read the article.  It’s funny.

This picture just cracks me up every single time I see it.  Ha!  I am partial to monkeys though so maybe that has something to do with it.

The only time I got to see anything in the city was when we left the office a little after 10 or 10:30pm on Saturday and walked to Times Square and ate at Planet Hollywood.  I used to think NYC looked crowded but after spending a few years in Hong Kong the busy streets of Times Square seemed barely crowded at all.  Not everyone shared my opinion, hehe.

I’m heading home in a few minutes.  I miss my family and I need a serious baby fix.

Kira and Michelle have both been sick for a little over a week now.  So far, I have been very lucky to not yet get sick.  The wife went through antibiotics and had no result so more than likely she has viral bronchitis just like our poor baby girl.  Kira has to breath in medicine in vapor form from a mask hooked to a loud machine.  She was basically tolerant of the experience at first but I think her patience is getting thin for that routine.  Not sure how much longer she needs that treatment but hopefully not too long.  She seems to be a bit better.

Kira continues to amaze me with her progress and ability.  Michelle continues to amaze me in taking care of Kira every day and the house and everything else.  I know she thinks I don’t appreciate her and the hard work she does every day but I do.  I really do.  I am very proud of both of them.  I really don’t think that Kira would be so well adjusted and amazingly advanced if it weren’t for Michelle being with her every day and working with her and taking care of her.

We have been getting the run-around with Graebel… again.  You may remember we had issues with them back in October of last year.  Well, to one extent or another we have had continual issues since then as well.  Now for the past few months we have been dealing with trying to get our insured items covered and repaired.  Some things have worked out and many things haven’t but nothing has gone smoothly.  You can read up on the current problems over at the wife’s site.  I have given up dealing with them and turned them over to her to deal with.  I’m betting they are now wishing that they would have just worked things out with me.  If we ever decide to move to a new city again with my current employer I will do everything I can to NOT use Graebel for that or any other move.

I’ve been busy working on a few different projects at work.  I’m working on getting some new security software rolled out to all of our computers (actually our Altiris guy is doing all the work) and I’m in the final stages of getting ready for a big office integration in New York City.  I do not look forward to being away from the wife and our little girl while working on that project and I’m sure Michelle isn’t looking forward to it either.  But I don’t have to travel too often and I’m still employed so I do what I have to do.

We were planning on migrating from Microsoft Exchange 2003 to the new Exchange 2007 and I’ve been working on the testing and planning of that for a few months.  However, now that Microsoft is releasing the next version (2010) earlier than expected, and faster than any other major revision cycle in history for that product, we are now on hold.  The idea is that we will now skip Exchange 2007 and go directly to 2010.  OK cool.  We can do that.

I have been working on some new comics for A Little Scary in my “spare” time but I missed my re-launch date of June 1st already.  I’m hoping to get a couple done soon.  Here’s hoping.  I don’t want to start up again without at least a small buffer or I’ll just end up getting discouraged again when a deadline comes and goes with no update.

Bonus points if you can tell me where I got the title of this post.

This morning we get an update that the office will be closed today.  I’m thinking that it must have been one heck of an explosion  to keep our office closed.  Then I click on the link provided.  A freaking Lear jet crash landed in the middle of Mexico City carrying important government officials.  A jet crashed only meters away from our office building there during rush hour.  As of this morning they knew that everyone on the plane was dead but had no idea how many people in the cars that the jet landed on were dead as well.

Here’s a link to an article and some video of the aftermath.  I’m betting that since it was a busy time of day, that the death toll will be going up.

Finally – its Friday!  Yesterday I thought it was Friday all day.  Imagine my disappointment when I was leaving for the day and people were saying “See you tomorrow!”  And I’m thinking to myself “pshaw… I’m not coming in on Saturd… dammit!”  And you’d think I’d know what day it was since it was a comic posting day.  Sheesh.

Me and two of my co-workers travelled into the deepest darkest depths of North Africa for lunch yesterday to get take-out from Crown Candy Kitchen.  I’d never been there before so I figured what the hell, why not?  Let me tell you… we couldn’t have looked more lost if we had a neon sign flashing above us with the word LOST written in 20 foot tall glowing letters.  Imagine this: Three white guys in button down shirts driving down the side streets of North St. Louis in a shiny silver BMW.  Me in the passenger sheet holding three pages of Google Maps trying to figure out which way to go when the route we are taking is inexplicably cut off by a street closure.  Yeah.

But we found it and made it inside without hearing a single gunshot (although to be fair there was a lot of road construction happening nearby so we might have missed it) and I have to admit its a pretty neat place.  A throw-back to the 50’s or 60’s in style, decor, seating… everything.  OK not everything.  The prices are insane.  It cost me almost $12 for a ham & cheese sandwich with some potato chips and a marshmallow malt.  What the hell?  Up here?  Who can afford that in this area?  Sadly, the candy prices were even higher.  Have they never heard of Wal-Mart?  It was good, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think I’ll be taking that particular safari again any time soon.

On the way back to the office my friend was showing off and punched the accelerator on the BMW.  We rocketed back and then he slowed down abruptly.  I asked him what that was for, thinking maybe he saw a cop.  He said we were doing 95 MPH and he didn’t want to take the Broadway exit ramp.  I called him a pussy.  There’s no other response possible at that point really.  If he’d have floored it and got another 20 or 30 MPH on it we could have taken that ramp, hit the apex, and flown right over the parking garage – through the side of our building and into his parking spot in the garage.  But no.  He slowed down and took another exit.  Pussy.

I brought my lunch today….

And this isn’t just the SSO where PeopleSoft uses LDAP to populate the user IDs.  No this is the SSO where people will automatically get logged into PS because they are already authenticated in Active Directory.  It seems there is a big difference.

So I don’t know if anyone out there has any experience with that sort of thing, feel free to leave some tips or links in the comments.  Otherwise, I’ll just be sitting here…  Googling….

We bought a new car on Friday night after work.  I’ll post more details about that as well as some pictures later.  I don’t have them with me right now.

I’m planning on leaving work today and venturing up into the unknown wilderness known as St. Peters to buy a car.  I’m sure there are ogres and dragons that far away from civilization but there are also a ton of car dealerships so it’s still rather convenient.  I’ve got an orange Mitsubishi Lancer GTS being held for me to buy tonight.  It’s pretty damn nice.  I’ll get some pics snapped maybe this weekend while it’s still all clean and shiny.

The training of my replacement is going well but his arrival delays have introduced even more stress to the situation.  I feel like I’m talking non-stop and gushing information but I’m worried how much he’s absorbing.  So far, he’s still not getting the names in the office right.  I hope he’s only bad with remembering names.  Otherwise it could be a long couple of years.

Regardless, I’m still plugging along.  I’m trying to get a buffer of comics done for A Little Scary so I can stay on schedule during the move.  The Monday comic is up and Thursday’s is ready to roll but I need to create at least one more to make it through the move.

Some of the things I tell him he already knows.  I think some of the things come as genuine surprises.  It’s not an easy job.  Usually.

Met with him in Wan Chai for a few beers tonight on my way home.  Now it’s late and I have a headache.  More to do tomorrow.

Medicine and sleep.