The last time I did this, I was working 13 hour days on top of a two and a half hour round trip commute. This time I’ve gotten myself set up in a hotel three blocks from the office and when I get to the room, I’m still exhausted. This office isn’t as fun as working across town at the center of the storm. I have a sneaking suspicion that things will start picking up tomorrow when we start kicking people out the door and lining them up in central Texas. For the time being, I’ll be happy racking up overtime and travel pay. Keep an eye on the Weather Channel for the next few days and you’ll have a pretty good preview of how tired a/o pissed off I’m gonna be for the next few weeks.
Author Archives: jdtharp
Called up…
OK gang, I got the call up this morning and will be on a flight this afternoon to go play hurricane. Looks like I’ll be in DC for the duration on this one. We’re working 12 on, 12 off, so I’m not going to promise to get in touch with anyone, buy if we get a lull, I’ll let ya’ll know.
And three shall be the number of the counting…
We’ve got three tropical systems keeping us pretty busy at the moment. Lots of planning and what ifs and more phone calls than anyone should reasonably be expected to keep up with. I’ll still be around, but the blogging may be a little slower for the next few days while we try to find our asses with both hands and a flashlight. Standby.
Suburban bliss…
I think ranting about my neighbor is going to become a regular feature here. There’s just too much good (bad) stuff to pass up…
Given the ridiculous heat and the fact that my lawn is staying alive only through the nourishing power of fertilizer and thousands of gallons of irrigation, I mow, on average, every other weekend. I did the mowing, did the trimming, and was putting the power equipment away when my neighbor fired up his, much more wussy than mine, mower. Not a big deal, glad to see the guy take an interest in lawn care. I won’t get into the fact that he actually ground it down to bare earth or that in the 6 months grass has been growing, he has never actually done any trimming.
Hearing the neighbor shut down his mower, I stepped onto the back patio for a tasty smoky treat and to look askance at the travesty the guy regularly inflicts on his lawn. I know my lawn and it only took a quick look over to see that something wasn’t right. Somehow, this putz had managed to leave a three foot tall swath just on his side of the property line between our houses. I know it’s on his side of the line because there’s a steak at the back corner and another at the front curb and that remembering my high school geometry, I can identify a line using those two points.
I’ll be the first to admit that property boundaries on our subdivision are a little odd, but they are all straight lines, rather than the gently curving arc that now appears to separate us. Really, numbnuts, how the hell can you not know where your property stops? And even if you didn’t know, the part I cut twenty minutes before you started should have been a pretty damn good indication. Yes, I know it seems strange and intuitively, you’d think that the boundary would be equidistant between our houses, but in reality, 2/3 of the open space is on your side of the line.
If you can’t get something this relatively easy figured out, how in the name of all things holy do you function in actual society and deal with issues that require more than breathing and walking all at the same time?
Someone once commented on good fences making good neighbors… do you suppose that’s still true when you make your fence out of razor wire and seed it with claymores?
Flash traffic…
There’s nothing that gets the blood flowing on a Friday afternoon like a “flash” message to prepare for emergency action. There’s a storm out there grinding its way towards Hawaii. She’s a category three this morning, but will get out over colder water this evening and weaken before getting close enough to do any real damage. In a moment of frustration with how things have been going at the office, this was just the reminder I needed to dig in and find a little motivation.
Mayhem, chaos, and destruction… God help me, I do love it so.
Doors and windows…
It’s remarkable how opportunities present themselves, particularly those you aren’t expecting. Just when you write off one possibility, it appears again. Maybe it’s a sign from Providence… or maybe it’s because other people suck… In either case, there’s a lot. Lots of thinking to do on this one. More to follow…
Less than good…
OK, so I went to see the Simpson’s Movie yesterday and all I can say is that it was a disappointment. I’m not some fancy big city movie critic, but so much of the movie seemed to be very forced and not particularly funny… except the Spider Pig part, which was still funny as hell. Making the leap from TV to the big screen has undone other great shows in the past, but I really did have great expectations for this one. I was sorely disappointed. Stupid great expectations.
10,000+
I’ve been giddy with anticipation for this event (Yes, I know I’m a geek, so sue me). I’ve been obsessively checking MySpace all evening and I’m finally ready to announce that tonight my little corner of the internet passed the 10,000 views mark. You people have had nothing better to do than check in on my maniacal ranting 10,000 times. Let’s think about that for a minute, shall we?
So, tonight, I’d like to thank all of you readers who keep coming back day after day for making me a little part of your daily routine. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. And while I won’t promise limitless new and interesting content, I hope that I can at least manage say something interesting or even something insightful from time to time.
So here’s to you Mr. and Ms. MySpace Blog Reader. Let’s try this again at 20,000.
Blur…
The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realized how important it is to hang on to the friends you had when you were a kid. They’re the ones who know where you came from and won’t let you forget it. The ones you cannot see for months on end and effortlessly pick up the conversation like you’d just had a burger at the local greasy spoon the last night. They are the ones who know your secrets and like you anyway. Maybe more importantly, they’re the guys you bled with and who bled with you.
For a long time now, I’ve known that I could be a better friend. The days stream by in a blur of airports and meetings and I realize months have gone by. We’re all busier now, occupied with the commitments of work and family and time has become our most valuable commodity. At the most basic level, I could have spend more time on the phone or sent a few more emails. I could have been there more often on a lot of fronts. Realistically, I think we all know that life isn’t going to be slowing down any time soon. At least not until we collectively punch our last timecard and head to the golf course.
I wish someone would have stopped me years ago, sat me down and made me understand how fast the time would go. There should be some kind of class that teaches you things like that. I don’t want to make a blanket statement and say anything like “I’d love to go back and go to school all over again.” I think that’s probably overstating the case. I would love to go back for just one night, one average night when the whole gang was together. A fire, a half-dozen pizzas, and a house full of your closest friends. I want to go back and see the “god’s eye view” of things and watch it all unfold. It really must have been something to see.
In the meantime, know that I think of you all often. I’m both proud of and humbled by your friendship. I’ve been told I need to stop the mushy posts and keep to ranting, which is a much more natural voice, but I’ve promised to always blog what happens to be on my mind and there you have it, live via tape delay, from Hartsfield International on the evening of July 30, 2007.
Live, from the 5th Circle of Hell; or From Atlanta with Love
There are a few posts from this week’s trip and you’ll be reading them in whichever order I feel like fleshing out my notes. There is also one that will be written, but not posted without the consent of the other parties involved. Barring that consent, it will remain a permanent part of my personal archive and never see the light of day. Either way, it’s there as a part of the record. You know, for 300 years from now when someone finds one of my old flash drives buried in the rubble of civilization and has to reconstruct what life was like in the 21st century based on only a handfull of snarky blog posts.
I digress, however, from the work at hand. I hate the airport at Atlanta. It’s over crowded both in terms of flight operations and the sheer number of our oblivious fellow airport patrons (did you really think I was going to use the phrase “fellow traveler?”). All the early flights are sold out, so here I sit until 7:30, when, I hope, the skies over the ALT are not full of thunderheads. It’s summer in Atlanta so I’m not holding my breath. This place is some kind of hellish business traveler’s purgatory where time takes on no actual significance.
It’s only saving grace is that it has indoor smoking if you know where to look; thus proving that even hell has its perks. Thank God I’m easy to please.
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