chief crazy work-horse

the kid and i just got back from cafeneto - extremely therapeutic. things with sunshine seem alright, and the kid participates when i let off steam... he's like a good therapist :P

today started off dodgy - the anguish begun the day before hasn't abated, and until a couple of hours ago things have just been snowballing (as in getting bigger and bigger, not as in clerks).

it was a mission to get piles to help me take the plastic bottles to the recycling bin this morning. once we were done, i specifically told him - twice to make sure - NOT to throw away the packet. the kid and i were laughing now about the stupid, completely uncomprehending look he gives. halfway back to the office i registered that he wasn't carrying anything.
"what the $#@! did you do with the packet?"
he looks at me totally innocently: "i threw it away. why do you ask?"

most of what i recall from my army day (due to some memory-suppression) is playing spider solitaire. i started the day watching demo videos of ruby on rails with brother bear - friggin' insane, the things they do. it's impressive as hell, and i hope i don't find an excuse to have to use it (i don't do web dev. even when i do, i don't).

in the afternoon, i managed to catch our branch officer earlier than i'd expected. we sat organizing, but there was yet another screw-up on the receiving end and it's out of our control as usual. this is all very frustrating, as i write this i have exactly 1 week and 6 days to go before my release. this is a another tense period of my life.

i organized entry permission for a friend who used to serve on our base, and we milled around for about half an hour before i got back to my solitaire. the late afternoon was a bit of a blur of interesting work-related discussions and me stressing.

-- lying to the cute, well-intentioned girl on the bus --

i hopped off the bus, and walked through to meet ru55's girlfriend and pick up my calculus book. it's bloody heavy. we chatted for 50 seconds, and then i made my way to work (bumping into my tallest's ex, turns out she lives in the area).

my mother sent me an email laughing at me for my idea of studying engineering: most of my family on my mother's side are either in that or medicine :P

work SUCKED. i've now gotten most of it out of my system, the remainder of the evening was insane because my manager was almost as pissed off as me, and demanded that i call the guy - i had to learn his name, find his phone number (harassing a girl i've never met in order to get it), and eventually settle for mass emailing anyway. all this while handling mmf's RFIs (he's tampering with a website) and SxS's girl-friend trying to set me up with some french girl.

the final straw, when i was running late for the bus, was getting into the elevator and feeling something sharp in the middle of my back. i tested with my hand, and there was definitely something bothering me (my heavy bag on my back, not smart to not deal with it). so i hurriedly dropped my bag and was halfway through ripping off the windbreaker when the elevator doors opened.
so i moved my little mission to the foyer, where the guard stared at me in disbelief as i, in disbelief, removed a thick, inch-long nail from centre of the windbreaker's back.

how it got there is an absolute mystery to me, but it's the perfect physical embodiment of where my head's at. i handed the bent nail to the guard as i left, and just made the bus.

inpassing.org is excellent