| I mentioned yesterday that I was participating in an MBP session at AcronymCo. For those of you who don't know (and I don't call the company AcronymCo for nothing, yo), MBP stands for "Management By Planning". We take a six month snapshot of all our projects, break 'em down to task level, and report out on our progress. Usually very dry stuff. However, yesterday a gaffe occurred during the presentations, to break up the monotony. The presenter, I think, was completely innocent. He just realized how it could be interpreted just a little too late to take it back: Presenter: "...and I know (x) doesn't want us to use the word, but "Firefighting" is our life." Audience: chuckle Presenter: "Seriously. We get to wear big red hats and shiny black rubber boots." Audience: laughter Presenter: "We've got a lot of pole sliding going on in our group." Audience: silence. It was all I could do to hold back my guffaws, sitting there in the back row. I figured everyone else was restraining themselves, too, but now I wonder if I was the only person there who went for the bawdy take on it. ******************** Good gawd, how could I have forgotten to mention "The Dark is Rising" sequence by Susan Cooper, in yesterday's mission? I *lived* off of those books in fifth and sixth grade!!! ******************** Speaking of which (well, not really, since she's in 7th grade), Marie got her progress reports, and except for a slight lack of attention to her Math homework, is performing at her usual excellent rate. We had a major discussion on Sunday night about what she wants to do for college, and she's still hanging onto the idea of going to Tufts University in Massachusetts. I can completely see her as a vet. Calvin and I are crossing our fingers that she continues her excellent work all the way through high school. Tufts is one *tough* school to get into. ******************** Doesn't everyone e-mail in Haiku? Archibael: Windows NT crashed "I am the blue screen of death!" No one hears your screams. Laura: unfortunately I must cease writing to you MBP's are hell Archibael: I'd say to have fun but having been to those things I know you will not Laura: Excellent haiku. The truth of the matter is, I did not have fun. Archibael: this is quite unique I know I have never talked solely in haiku Laura: I am finding it fun and quite easily done. Now I'm off to ops! Archibael: ops is not worthy of even a pathetic haiku, but okay Laura: On to other news. I hate my contractor so. He should die slowly. Archibael: I thought that all work was complete-- that no more stuff remained to be done? Laura: Punchlist items still exist to torture my life. Oh, shoot me now please. Archibael: it can't be that bad! but if you insist on it i'll indulge you-- bang! Laura: You do of course know I'm putting this on my site. You just have no choice. Archibael: even the kewl parts about lesbians and stuff? I don't think you'd dare! Laura: Marie's innocence should be protected longer. She reads, don't you know. Archibael: Precisely my point; I knew I was right on that-- you are such a mom. Laura: I do try my best. Sometimes I truly suspect I might do some good. Archibael: I'm sure that Marie will turn out much better off with your influence Laura: Aww. You make me blush. I guess I hide my weirdness better than I thought. (Escaping Haiku mode for a second to say sheesh! We're nerds! But fun, snarky nerds.) ~grin~ Archibael's cool. It's too bad the bunch of us can't hang out; me, Calvin and the kids - he, his wife and baby. Let's just say there are complications that come with friendships, sometimes. So we're relegated to e-mail weirdness. Calvin and he have met on one or two occasions, and I think they'd get along well. They agree on a lot of viewpoints - like guns, and politics. You know, the heavy stuff. Marie is dying to babysit their daughter. Plus, I think if we were able to hang out, Calvin would get over the minor bit of jealousy he feels toward Archibael. Totally that male testosterone thing. His Woman is conversing with Another Male, after all. Yeesh. Ah, well, if it's meant to be, it'll happen. The ball is in Archibael's wife's court. ******************** Yesterday's entry was ~Snerkology's~ 50th episode. I just thought that was worth mentioning. ******************** Nancy is back! All you Perforated Lines fans, go check it out! ******************** Calvin drove two and a half hours home from Flagstaff last night, just so he could spend the night with his family. He didn't get home until 7:00pm. He then turned right back around this morning at 6:00 and drove two and a half hours back up to Flagstaff to finish the job. How's that for love? |
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Your Mission, should you choose to accept it...
Send me Christmas gift suggestions for a seventeen year old young man who is going into the Marines in six months. Michael didn't ask for much this year, and I'm kind of stumped. Marie, on the other hand, gave us *three revisions* of her Christmas list.
Results From Yesterday's Mission I finished "A Wrinkle in Time" this morning before I had to get ready for work. I'm going to take it back and check out "A Wind in the Door" and "A Swiftly Tilting Planet". Oh, and who knew that Jean Craighead George wrote two more sequels to "My Side of the Mountain"? There's a compilation hardcover available from Amazon. Merry Christmas to me... Lots of response from yesterday's mission. Sakana from It's all gone a bit wobbly writes: "When I was a kid, my favorite books were THREE FRIENDS FIND SPRING and BOFFO AND THE GREAT MOTORCYCLE RACE. Slightly older, my favorite was THE TRUMPET OF THE SWAN. I think I can still recite that one. Madeline L'Engle really, really freaked me out when I read her. I couldn't get my head around all that metaphysical stuff-- didn't some girl go into someone else's body, or something? God, it still gives me the creeps. It was made worse by the fact that I had NO idea it was coming. At all." ~grin~ Anna of Lucidity writes: "I've been re-reading my favourite Pony Books - "Ponies Plot" by C. Northcote Parkinson, and as many of the "Jill" books by Ruby Ferguson as I can get my paws (hooves?) on." I confess I've never heard of these books, but it did remind me of "Misty of Chincoteague" and related books by Marguerite Henry, with Wesley Dennis' wonderful illustrations. I ate them up as a child. I grabbed the design idea for the box thingy from Anna.
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