Woke up with a headache
Not a hangover
I didn't drink last night
I rarely have a headache
Drank my coffee
Still have a headache
Rode the metro
Packed in like sardines
Too short to reach the bar
Too far to reach the other bar
Surf to work
Packed in like sardines
Don't touch anybody
Who let one?
I still have a headache
Got to work
Servers are down.
Kick the servers.
They have a headache
Finish prepping my presentation
Servers still down????
Test the meeting software
Maybe I'm thirsty
Drink lots of water.
Still have a headache
Scramble for a projector
Ask around for aspirin
Maybe I'm hungry
Eat a muffin
Headache still there
Give presentation
Ten people in my live studio audience
Only one hostile witness
Thirty people in conference call land
Uh oh. Have to pee.
Too much water.
One hostile project manager
Went bureacrat on my ass
Last time I make a decision
The headache is worse
I didn't drink last night
I don't deserve this
Many beeps during talk
Tell me the herd is thinning
Survived the presentation
Live audience won't go away
Maybe I didn't have enough coffee
Went to starbucks
I like starbucks
Here, I'm TALL, not grande
Consumed caffeine
Now I have headache
And I'm hyper
My muscles are vibrating
But not in a nice way
More of a "Is that my cell phone buzzing" way
More servers are down
Damn servers.
Email my boss
Warn her about the angry bureaucrat
Who will be CONTACTING her
When will the headache go?
Leave the office
Ride the metro
Not quite so packed.
Discuss servers with Jay and a stranger
Who had to listen
Because she got between us
And my headache
Is still there
Keeping me company
On my way home
Buy aspirin
89 cents
No tax
Get home
Maybe it's a brain tumor
Eat aspirin
Eat tylenol
No more caffeine, thanks
Out to dinner
Feeling better
Better
.....
BETTER.
Check please
$60 plus tip
.
.
.
I have a headache
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Friday, September 09, 2005
The NYC Conundrum -- It's great. It stinks.
Couldn't sleep. Taylor turned off the AC and it's hot in here. Screw conservation, I want my air conditioning. So instead, I'm writing to you, dear reader.
The Big Apple----
For this past three day Labor Day Weekend, Taylor and I went to the actual BIG CITY, New York City! We stayed right at Times Square in a type of hotel one can only call "expensive cheap hotel". Neither Taylor nor I have ever touristed in NYC, so it was all new. I mean, I didn't discover anything truly new. We were in Manhattan. It's in the movies, on the news shows, in pictures. It was like visiting a place after having studied about it in school. No wait, it wasn't _like_ that, it WAS that.
We went to the fantastically wonderful play SPAMALOT. If you're a Monty Python fan, you should be feeling jealous right.....about......NOW.
As I mentioned, we didn't discover anything new. I mean, how would you discover something new in a place where about 10 million people have been before you? I could say "I discovered myself" or something cheesy, but it wouldn't be true. That being said, there is one thing for which the texts did not adequately prepare me. This fantastic, vibrant, stimulating city STINKS to HIGH HEAVEN. I mean, HOLY HELL, this place really fills the snoot. It's mostly piss smell, seasoned with dumpster stink and a side of simmering sewage. Penn Station smelled like the barf brigade came through right before we got there. And our cheap ($100/night) hotel room smelled overwhelmingly of urine and lysol. Taylor kept telling me to stop thinking about it. She suggested I try moving the earplugs (cheap, noisy hotel) to my nose. Either way, I wouldn't be able to sleep.
So, besides the stinky factor, we walked for MILES and MILES all over Manhattan and:
The Big Apple----
For this past three day Labor Day Weekend, Taylor and I went to the actual BIG CITY, New York City! We stayed right at Times Square in a type of hotel one can only call "expensive cheap hotel". Neither Taylor nor I have ever touristed in NYC, so it was all new. I mean, I didn't discover anything truly new. We were in Manhattan. It's in the movies, on the news shows, in pictures. It was like visiting a place after having studied about it in school. No wait, it wasn't _like_ that, it WAS that.
We went to the fantastically wonderful play SPAMALOT. If you're a Monty Python fan, you should be feeling jealous right.....about......NOW.
As I mentioned, we didn't discover anything new. I mean, how would you discover something new in a place where about 10 million people have been before you? I could say "I discovered myself" or something cheesy, but it wouldn't be true. That being said, there is one thing for which the texts did not adequately prepare me. This fantastic, vibrant, stimulating city STINKS to HIGH HEAVEN. I mean, HOLY HELL, this place really fills the snoot. It's mostly piss smell, seasoned with dumpster stink and a side of simmering sewage. Penn Station smelled like the barf brigade came through right before we got there. And our cheap ($100/night) hotel room smelled overwhelmingly of urine and lysol. Taylor kept telling me to stop thinking about it. She suggested I try moving the earplugs (cheap, noisy hotel) to my nose. Either way, I wouldn't be able to sleep.
So, besides the stinky factor, we walked for MILES and MILES all over Manhattan and:
- We saw all those places you see on TV, and now Taylor is pointing them out every time they show up on TV: "We were there, oooh, there too. And there!"
- Saw a bunch of pigeons
- We saw a dead ringer for Taylor's grandmother at South Street Seaport (also saw a few chili dogs...) and stalked her like papparrazzi. That was funny, for us at least. She started looking nervous after the fifth time Taylor ran up next to her and I took a snapshot.
- Ate at some great diners.
- Saw pigeons.
- Got together with my old friend Khiang in China town for dim sum with half of the population of Manhattan all stuffed into one giant room.
- Watched some rats running around. They don't look so scary. Not like the dive bomber pigeons.
- Rode in a taxi and experienced 0 - 85 in 1/2 a city block. Asked the taxi driver to let us out BEFORE we reached our destination, figuring our odds of survival were better.
- Saw skywriting (really cool) but couldn't properly read it because the tall buildings blocked the view.
- Saw those green newsstands like Seinfeld has in his show.
- Got chewed out by a homeless (i think) woman for not helping her get her cart up over the curb (I thought she wanted to be independent. I didn't know).
- Saw more pigeons
- Got attacked by a woman with so many rings that she cut my fingers when she walked by and scraped me with her multi-caret jewels
- Paid $24 to go up the Empire State Building, but Taylor found 5 pennies up there, so really $23.95
- Have I mentioned pigeons?
- Learned too many personal details about a guy talking on his cell phone on the train back.
Mozart's
Tutoring just started back up. Loyal followers will remember tutoring from one of my very first posts, so I won't bore you with the details. The important point is: after tutoring, some of us tutors go across the street to Mozart's. Mozart's is an unexpected place, and a bit hard to describe. It is right smack in the middle of downtown DC, across the street from the church where we tutor, World Bank, Metro Center and Mc Donalds. It's a German deli/bar/restaurant/knick knackery. The deli section sells regular deli stuff, German food, german trinkets, German candy, German magazines (that look at least 20 years old, lending credence to the rumor that the front door is really a time machine), German groceries, German Beer...you get the idea.
I like the bar. It's a neighborhood bar. Sometimes there are drunk people sitting there, and I've sang songs with them (can't remember which songs at the moment). There are rarely tourists because, as I mentioned, this place is unexpected and nobody who didn't know it's there would find it (which does bring up a certain chicken/egg question regarding their customer base). There is a resident musician who is usually in the dinner room next door doing a karaoke style performance where he plays his guitar and sings, accompanied by the recorded bass and accordion lines. He dropped by our table this evening and said: "I am here now to play you songs for you. My name is Tim. I am from Georgia, the country. I play Georgian music, Russian music, German music, American music and my own music. What would you like me to play for you?" Our first request: play your OWN stuff, perhaps a baudy drinking song. He gladly obliged and sang a nice song. He said it was about drinking, and we had to take his word for it because we don't speak Georgian, the country. The song sounded more like a love song than a drinking song to me, but love....drinking....I can see the connection. Next song was a Russian gypsie song. That was good fun. Finally, the request was for an American song. Tim: "Which one?" Us: "Play your favorite." So he played 500 miles. Classic Peter Paul & Mary. Karin & I knew it, but our other comrades did not. I pardonned Sharmila, the Canadian, but I'm not so quick to forgive Clark who is a good, Yankee boy in his late 40's. He has no excuse. Anyway, as it was getting more and more surreal, we paid Tim $7 to go play for somebody else. No, we tipped him generously and thanked him for his music. It was, after all, unexpected.
Then, on the way back to the Metro, I found a coin in the road. But not an American coin (this is the second non-American coin I've found in DC). It is so mangled from the miles it has travelled, that I cannot tell what it is. It is copper colored, just a hair larger than a quarter, has a picture of a woman and I can make out the word Elizabeth. The back is so worn that all the letters and pictures are completely scraped off. I've never seen a coin this worn out. Taylor thinks it's an English Tuppence. I don't know. I just hope they'll trade it in at the bank.
I like the bar. It's a neighborhood bar. Sometimes there are drunk people sitting there, and I've sang songs with them (can't remember which songs at the moment). There are rarely tourists because, as I mentioned, this place is unexpected and nobody who didn't know it's there would find it (which does bring up a certain chicken/egg question regarding their customer base). There is a resident musician who is usually in the dinner room next door doing a karaoke style performance where he plays his guitar and sings, accompanied by the recorded bass and accordion lines. He dropped by our table this evening and said: "I am here now to play you songs for you. My name is Tim. I am from Georgia, the country. I play Georgian music, Russian music, German music, American music and my own music. What would you like me to play for you?" Our first request: play your OWN stuff, perhaps a baudy drinking song. He gladly obliged and sang a nice song. He said it was about drinking, and we had to take his word for it because we don't speak Georgian, the country. The song sounded more like a love song than a drinking song to me, but love....drinking....I can see the connection. Next song was a Russian gypsie song. That was good fun. Finally, the request was for an American song. Tim: "Which one?" Us: "Play your favorite." So he played 500 miles. Classic Peter Paul & Mary. Karin & I knew it, but our other comrades did not. I pardonned Sharmila, the Canadian, but I'm not so quick to forgive Clark who is a good, Yankee boy in his late 40's. He has no excuse. Anyway, as it was getting more and more surreal, we paid Tim $7 to go play for somebody else. No, we tipped him generously and thanked him for his music. It was, after all, unexpected.
Then, on the way back to the Metro, I found a coin in the road. But not an American coin (this is the second non-American coin I've found in DC). It is so mangled from the miles it has travelled, that I cannot tell what it is. It is copper colored, just a hair larger than a quarter, has a picture of a woman and I can make out the word Elizabeth. The back is so worn that all the letters and pictures are completely scraped off. I've never seen a coin this worn out. Taylor thinks it's an English Tuppence. I don't know. I just hope they'll trade it in at the bank.
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