So I got back last night from Jacksonville, Florida. The customer wrote a glowing note, my boss was happy, and all is right with the world.
A few quick hits though:
1. The client and I had dinner together Monday night, which could have been awkward, but he ordered beer first, and I followed suit. We had some great gumbo, kick-ass shrimp, fun conversation and some tart, wonderful key lime pie. I love client dinners. Well, sometimes. This one was excellent.
2. Jacksonville is, for what I saw of it, much like many other semi-urban locales. But there were palm trees. That was the first thing I saw that made me regret not bringing a camera.
3. The second thing I wish I'd had a camera for was the bathrooms at the client's HQ. The toilets there have two flush modes - one for light flushing jobs, the other for heavy. It will auto-flush the proper mode for you based on your seat time, or you can pick which mode you want, manually. I thought this was super cool. Everyone I share this with laughs.
4. If you were to go down in a fiery plane crash, wouldn't you have wanted your last meal to include bacon? I would. So I had a bacon cheeseburger at the Jacksonville Airport Chili's pre-flight. Because I'm not a glutton (haha), I left some fries.
5. One of my colleagues said he missed me because I brought joy to the department. Which makes the only thing better than leaving the office from time to time - coming back. Even if he was blowing smoke (and I don't think so), it made me feel like a million ducks (that's right, feathery and loud).
6. Two more trips may or may not surface. New Jersey and Brunswick, GA. Fun.
7. My ears are so jacked up from the flights that I would gladly stuff my entire head with Damp-Rid to dry it out. Tempting.
8. Lola and Matt both ostensibly did fine in my brief absence. They're working Matt to death though, so that kept him busy for much of the time.
9. I read two books - one on the flight there, one on the flight back. The former was a trashy Maeve Binchy. Now you know my secret shame. I read garbage. This one was worse than most, though. It took over a dozen characters from previous novels and threw them together into a melange that was at best, amusing, but so damn predictable. I still enjoyed it - much like you enjoy the chili at Waffle House, even though you know they just scraped the meat debris from the grills off into a pot of beans and tomatoes to make it. Tell me I'm wrong. I'll still eat Waffle House any day. If Maeve's "Heart and Soul" (about a fledgling heart rehab clinic) was Waffle House Chili, the second book was more like homemade vegetable soup - "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" was a fun, quick, smart read. It's been out forever, but special thanks to Natae for letting us borrow it -and to Matt for leaving it in the car so I could abscond with it.
10. It's good to be home.
11. Good night.
Allison
A few quick hits though:
1. The client and I had dinner together Monday night, which could have been awkward, but he ordered beer first, and I followed suit. We had some great gumbo, kick-ass shrimp, fun conversation and some tart, wonderful key lime pie. I love client dinners. Well, sometimes. This one was excellent.
2. Jacksonville is, for what I saw of it, much like many other semi-urban locales. But there were palm trees. That was the first thing I saw that made me regret not bringing a camera.
3. The second thing I wish I'd had a camera for was the bathrooms at the client's HQ. The toilets there have two flush modes - one for light flushing jobs, the other for heavy. It will auto-flush the proper mode for you based on your seat time, or you can pick which mode you want, manually. I thought this was super cool. Everyone I share this with laughs.
4. If you were to go down in a fiery plane crash, wouldn't you have wanted your last meal to include bacon? I would. So I had a bacon cheeseburger at the Jacksonville Airport Chili's pre-flight. Because I'm not a glutton (haha), I left some fries.
5. One of my colleagues said he missed me because I brought joy to the department. Which makes the only thing better than leaving the office from time to time - coming back. Even if he was blowing smoke (and I don't think so), it made me feel like a million ducks (that's right, feathery and loud).
6. Two more trips may or may not surface. New Jersey and Brunswick, GA. Fun.
7. My ears are so jacked up from the flights that I would gladly stuff my entire head with Damp-Rid to dry it out. Tempting.
8. Lola and Matt both ostensibly did fine in my brief absence. They're working Matt to death though, so that kept him busy for much of the time.
9. I read two books - one on the flight there, one on the flight back. The former was a trashy Maeve Binchy. Now you know my secret shame. I read garbage. This one was worse than most, though. It took over a dozen characters from previous novels and threw them together into a melange that was at best, amusing, but so damn predictable. I still enjoyed it - much like you enjoy the chili at Waffle House, even though you know they just scraped the meat debris from the grills off into a pot of beans and tomatoes to make it. Tell me I'm wrong. I'll still eat Waffle House any day. If Maeve's "Heart and Soul" (about a fledgling heart rehab clinic) was Waffle House Chili, the second book was more like homemade vegetable soup - "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" was a fun, quick, smart read. It's been out forever, but special thanks to Natae for letting us borrow it -and to Matt for leaving it in the car so I could abscond with it.
10. It's good to be home.
11. Good night.
Allison
Comments
We have one two-mode toilet at Shaw, guess it's a test. It's the good old metal handle, but if you kick it up (yes, kick, who uses hands these days?) then it does light flush (which honestly ain't that light) and kicking it down like normal leads to release of Niagara Falls (seriously, it's the longest and strongest flush I've ever imagined a toilet may need).
Hopefully they adopt this everywhere and reverse the handle direction so that kicking it down leads to the 'light' flush... Niagara Falls should stay where they belong - in Canada. Eh?
Damn Canadians.