“Minnet, jag har tappat mitt minne, är jag svensk eller finne, kommer inte ihåg…”

Tonight starts a week long stint of not having overnight support at the office. That means that there is an extremely high probability that I am going to be getting paged out constantly starting around three in the morning. Fortunately I am not too exhausted today and I am working from home tomorrow so the first few days should be alright. The first half of next week will be rough.

It rained this morning but is very warm. I walked over to Airlie Cafe and grabbed my breakfast sandwich and a salad for lunch later on.

I finished reading “Predictably Irrational” by Dan Ariely this morning. It was very good and I highly suggest it even to people without a particular interest in behavioral economics. I have started rereading “The Dilbert Principle” by Scott Adams for, what must be, the fourth time at least.

My afternoon was actually very busy. But not that stressful busy that you worry about. It was a good, productive busy. Busy troubleshooting and finding real solutions to problems. The kind of busy that you feel good about on the train ride home.

My train ride home didn’t come until very late, though. It was well after seven when I finally had the opportunity to head out of the office. Ramona and Winni might have been on their way to our apartment even before I was. I did finish reading “The Dilbert Principle” before leaving the office. Good book progress today.

On the ride home I started reading “Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West” by Benazir Bhutto, former Prime Minister of Pakistan. It started off strong. I probably won’t get a chance to read any more of it until Friday.

I got home and we all ordered in dinner from Nino’s. Then we sat down to play a couple games of Steve Jackson’s Munchkin. Neither Dominica nor I had ever played Munchkin. It was fun and we had a good time. Dinner arrived and we made it through two bottles of wine.

We played until midnight when we realized that it was way too late for Dominica who has to work tomorrow and that now Ramona and Winni will have to walk home rather than taking the shuttle since the shuttle only runs until midnight during the week.

My textbook, “Object Oriented System Analysis and Design with UML“, for my master’s Systems Analysis and Design class arrived today. The class is actually called Object Methods or something like that as it is an object oriented SAD class but, more or less, it is just the master’s version of SAD2 that I took at SUNY Empire State College several years ago. This is one of the only two classes that I will have taken three of during my career at university the other being Java programming (Java Programming and Algorithms in Java at ESC and Java Programming at RIT.) I really enjoyed SAD as an undergrad so I am really looking forward to this class now. It starts officially on Monday. I am really excited about the textbook. It is an insanely expensive book at $160 but I found it used for just $60 but when it arrived today it was the most completely mint, brand-new book ever. It was even still shrink-wrapped and had not even even been opened as if it had been on a shelf and browsed. This was the best deal ever.

Tomorrow is my day at home with Oreo.  That is good because tonight is my first night without dedicated overnight support fielding my support calls during the off-hours.  So I will be on primary support starting at around two in the morning for Bahrain and three in the morning for London and Belfast.  Technically support is needed all night because of the Pacific Rim (Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney, etc.) but they don’t really need anything ever.

Before going to bed I fired up the computer in the living room and got all logged into the office and set up so that I could work quickly and easily during the night.  I don’t want to be fighting to log in while attempting to wake up if someone needs me.  And I wanted all of the extra email cleaned up and deleted and anything lingering to be taken care of before the long night began.  I ended up working from midnight until just after one in the morning.  Then it was off to bed.

For those of you following the furlough news for me – there have been some changes proposed and I should know my furlough schedule tomorrow.  I hope.  Dominica and I are currently kicking around the possibility of escaping to Playa del Carmen on the Mayan Riviera in Mexico and potentially some combination to also head down to San Pedro Town in Belize or, to go in a completely different direction, possibly heading east to Croatia.  It is going to depend on timing and our finances.  We would definitely prefer Croatia but a short window of opportunity or the high costs of flights may force us one way or the other.

I had to get up and get out the door even earlier than I normally would even when going into the office on the early side. The event was held at the Sheraton at seventh avenue and fifty-third. That means that I had to take the PATH to the World Trade Center and then the “E” train to seventh avenue. That meant that it took longer to get there than my usual walk to Wall Street and they wanted people to be there as early as a quarter after seven in the morning which was pretty early. I was shooting for a little closer to eight.

The morning keynote was pretty good and we got to see one of the Microsoft Technical Fellows speak and saw several demonstrations. We were provided a breakfast – orange, blueberry muffin, granola bar and orange juice. Then we had the morning technical session which ran until a quarter after one in the afternoon. We ate lunch during the session since I was in the “lengthy” morning session that had no scheduled lunch break. They provided a grilled vegetable sandwich, pretzels, red delicious apple and a Milky Way candy car.

I did get a short break between the sessions mid-afternoon so I hiked across seventh avenue to 810 Deli & Cafe to grab a large coffee and a tuna and avocado wrap before returning to the next session. I needed some caffeine to keep me going.

The afternoon session ran until just after five. All of the other sessions only went until four but I tend to be ambitious. The crowd had dwindled significantly by the time that we were leaving.

I beat Dominica and Oreo home but just five minutes. She came home and cooked dinner.

Dominica picked up Munchkin Cthulhu by Steve Jackson Games today. She has been dying to get her hands on card games for several days now.

On Sunday while hanging out with Ramona and Winni, Ramona was talking about sailing in the British Virgin Islands and mentioned this hilarious British red callbox that had been converted into a shower and installed at the end of a dock where they had, appropriately, docked. I said that I thought that that sounded exactly like the cover of Simon Winchester’s book “Outposts” which I had just read a few weeks ago – possibly while Ramona was in BVI. So I sent her a picture of the book and she identified it as the very same callbox. Now there is an incredible coincidence. Such a tiny, unremarkable spot on the face of the planet and I didn’t have a clue where that picture was taken and for her to actually have been there just a week ago and to be talking about it – madness, as they say in Belfast.

We ate dinner and watched some It’s A Different World and then I had to get to work to make up a bunch of things that didn’t get completed today because I was at the Microsoft show. So I worked about two hours until a bit after eleven. Dominica played more of MySims while I worked.

We had another Amazon order arrived today. I received “Interface Oriented Design”, “More News from Lake Wobegon” Audio CDs and the fourth season of Allo, Allo from the BBC circa 1987.