A Day in the Life

Today, one of our Directors sent a request for submissions to an internal newsletter. He wanted four people to describe a typical day at work. My job was not one of the types he requested (although I think my job is fascinating), but I thought I'd put a slice of life on paper for you.

I woke up, fed our baby girl while listening to NPR (our TV has been moved out of the Living Room), took a shower, got dressed, sent some email, kissed the kids and lovely wife and drove to work. On the way to work, I spoke with one of my favorite team members. (I don't have a link for him, but he used to have a website called BoatPorn.com. It had no porn, only pictures of his friends on his boat -- he did it to get more hits on his site. No, I'm not sure why.) I got to work and attended a 13-minute meeting that normally takes 90 minutes. Always a pleasant surprise. When I walked in (late) to the meeting, my network cable caught the edge of my soda. This caused a mild stir as soda spread slowly and eerily across the table. (Did you know that pouring soda in one of those fancy projectors would cause the projector to stop working immediately?) This may be why the meeting was shorter than normal.

OK, one paragraph in and my job doesn't seem so fascinating. I'll skip to lunch and evening.

173 minutes pass.

Lunch was with three friends (Jen -- sister of FluidPudding and Craig/Stan -- two guys that have held varying roles as bosses and coworkers, but always as friends) at one of our favorite lunchtime haunts, Baja Grill. I like to pronounce the 'J' for fun. Try it sometime.

259 minutes pass.

At 5:15, I went to the conference room in the front of our building and talked to two visiting dignitaries who are quickly climbing the 'my-friends' chart. Jim and George are brilliant and hilarious guys. They know lots about a lot of things. They are interesting people inside/outside of work and I look forward to their visits. More on them soon, I think.

I had a delicious dinner at home with the family and in-laws. These in-laws are not your stereotypical in-laws. They are kind, generous, helpful (thanks for trying to correct the sprinkler system), loving to our kids and they occasionally bring pizza from here when they go to Kansas City. After dinner, I played a computer game with Elliott and watched a cartoon with Annie and Elliott as they calmed down in that time before going to bed. While Jen read books to the older kids, I fed Julia the nighttime bottle and put her to bed. (this is a good day-bookend activity)

Then, as if that wasn't a great enough day, I went to see the new Star Wars movie at 9:15 with another great guy. After the movie, we stood in the parking lot and talked -- you don't talk much in a movie. Well, you aren't supposed to talk in a movie. Some people do. They shouldn't. But they do anyway. The previous four sentences were a Short Story Made Long moment.

All the way home, I debated the jogging thing. It was 12:30 am, after all. And remember the coyotes, insects and possible freaks at the end of the long, scary tunnels. But, I promised all of you on Tuesday that I would run again on Thursday. So. I. Did. {Insert cheering noise} I ran on the treadmill watching two Frasier episodes. Not scary at all.

How about that for a great day? Now, It is 2:01 am and I'm off to take a shower and go to bed. I'll read for a while (my average reading time is 3 seconds/evening) unless I get a why-is-that-light-on-this-late-at-night glare from my lovely wife.

...and to all a good night.