Thursday, November 30, 2006

Perhaps I'm done for...

Yesterday I wore a suit to work. It attracted no end of attention - comments, catcalls, etc from my co-workers. Some were actually concerned I was out interviewing (which says a lot, given that I'm "just" a consultant), others were making HR-questionable comments about how well I "clean up" (again, as a consultant, I am fair game for the meat market commentary... ;-) ) The best was that I had two meetings with the CFO, and he is traditionally a sharp dresser, and for some reason had decided on a casual look for the day. So I ribbed him for not bringing his game. Mercilessly.

Turns out I was dressed up for a schmoozefest for the company I sub for: They had an evening planned at the new Guthrie Theatre - tours and food (but no show), and wanted all their manager-level consultants to be there to chat up the clients. It was all current clients, so this was not so much a sales opportunity as much as a thanks and let's be friends sort of evening.

And I'm ashamed to say, I actually had a pretty good time. Usually these sorts of obligatory evenings are just my worst nightmare, but I got my chat on, and had a good time. And yes, I even stayed off the social lubricant - it was just chatty Jimmy. In fact, I spent most of the evening hanging with the clients, not gravitating toward my co-consultants... so I even did my JOB.

The new Guthrie is just an amazing space. The building is flat out hideous from the outside, but inside it feels like a slice of the future, in a good way. I half expected to turn a corner and find someone walking towards me on the ceiling. But what's craziest is that they literally planted the OLD Guthrie right in the middle of it - it looks exactly the same inside. Honestly, it reminded me of the Star Trek (Next Generation/Scab Crew) Holodeck. I half expected Picard and Data to be spouting some shakespeare before being interrupted by some Romulan nonsense.

When I got home, poor Pamela was at wit's end: Bella was asleep, and then got UP with a second wind, and Isaac was overtired and crabby. I slipped out of the suit into jammies and played "child whisperer" and got them down, while my grateful wife retreated to her sensory deprivation chamber to decompress... ;->

Tonight, Pamela was at church decorating, so I took the young'uns to a mall, we had dinner, played in the playpark, and I brought them home, exhausted, and tucked them in. No muss no fuss tonight...

I did break down and get a toy for myself tonight, however... you can't expect daddy to be out playing and not get something. The Dyson hand vacuum. LOVE it. It was that or "Butterscotch" the 3 foot high robot pony, which Bella played with, enraptured, for 15 minutes at Target. What I loved about Butterscotch was that while it did have "realistic" reactions, it also had VERY loud servomotor sounds, and it reminded me of when me and my buddy Mark would pretend to be robots, making whirrr sounds as we moved... yeah that was around 6 years ago, not in my youth. I know.

So now I'm going to finish up my intro to the Brainready book: I've tweaked all 28 worksheets, and we're ready for the printer, I just need to make a cover and an intro. If you haven't seen my worksheets, you really should look. There are 12 of them out on the website now (www.brainready.com). I'm kind of proud of them.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Butterscotch: When I hear Sue and Alexis' stories about their ponies and horses I think, yes, a robot pony might be just the ticket.... Apparently I am not alone in this thought.
Guthrie: Some critic called it "an assassin in a steel blue suit" during its opening publicity. It DOES feel like a spaceship inside. Brilliant!
Clothing: when pressed, we do have a capacity to present. Keep them guessing, though.
The WORD VERIFICATION this time is either the sound a camel makes before it spits on you or a borderline obscenity. It could be an item of middle eastern clothing.....