negative airways

Today traveling home from WVA I had two really strange experiences...

The first was when I was sitting in a people mover at Dulles waiting to be taken to my gate. It had 5 minutes to go until it left so I pulled out a book I'm reading about blackwater. Two soldiers got on the people mover and sat across from me. One was obviously a seasoned soldier and the other was a new soldier who had apparently never been on a commercial airplane before. The seasoned guy was explaining to the other guy how the airport worked.

He then noticed the book I was reading. The people mover started filling up. He felt the need to start expounding on americans who don't appreciate the war in Iraq and how they are just stupid liberals who don't know shit about shit, and how it should be illegal for someone to even publish such a book. At first I was going to just ignore him, but then I started getting mad. I put my book mark in my book and looked right at the soldier. I could tell the other people in the people mover were worried there was going to be a fight.

I looked at the soldier and I said "Are you talking about me?" He looked unsure as to how to proceed, and then he said "Yes". I said "You are offended by the fact I'm reading this book?" Again, he said yes. "Do you know me, know anything about me, or know anything about this book?" I asked him. He sat there and didn't say anything . So I said "Does it bother you when people see you in uniform and react negatively to that?" He answered in the affirmative. I said "So why would you do the same thing to me that you hate other people doing to you?"

I then explained to him that the most important point being made in the blackwater book is that the company has defrauded the tax payers out of a lot of money, for example, by bringing in people who aren't as trained as a soldier, to do the work of a soldier, and that those people make at least 4 times what a soldier makes. I offered to read to him sections of the book I had marked where high ranking soldiers complained that blackwater was shooting people and ramming cars for no reason, and how retaliation was usually directed at soldiers and that it unstabilized regions that had been stable. And that blackwater had bought so much equipment for their guys that the Army and Marines were unable to give all of their soldiers bullet proof vests and armoured cars.

"Does that bother you?" I asked him. He said "Yes." I told him I would mail him the book when I was finished with it, if he wanted to read it too, or at least the sections I had described since I had them tabbed. He said "Ma'am, you don't have to do that, I'll buy a copy". I then said that one of the things we are supposedly doing in Iraq is allowing the Iraqi people the freedom to read a book that may say negative things about their government, and that his comment about not publishing books like the one I was reading, or imposing negative consequences for people who read those books, was exactly against everything that americans are supposed to believe.

There was dead silence on the people mover for the rest of the ride. As we got to the gate I wished the soldiers good luck. I think the thing that most pissed me off about the whole encounter is that I've worked with special forces and the marines my whole career, doing things to support them above what I was required to do. Last summer after I worked with the Navy SEALs the captain who hired me walked me to my car the last day of my engagement and said "I just wanted to thank you for your support to the war effort. We get thanked because we're in uniform, and people like you are usually forgotten."

And, I just spent the past week working 14 - 16 hour days to support another military organization. I don't have to do that. I do it because I know if I don't do the work it won't get done, and I'm not okay with that. I'm sure in his head that soldier was thinking "fuck you" but maybe he really will buy a copy of the book.

Then, I got on my plane. There was a couple sitting next to me with a little girl who was around 3. They seemed happy enough. The wife was very attractive and she and her husband kept talking about her mom, whom they were going to visit.

The steward brought us drinks, and the husband asked for a straw. The steward gave him one of those straws that you use to stir coffee. The husband looked at it, obviously pissed. So I leaned over the aisle and said "I have some real straws if you want one". I have a hard time drinking out of a normal glass since I have limited feeling in my lower lip due to a bike accident so I always travel with straws. The guy said "That would be really great!"

I pulled out my straws and asked if the kid had a particular color in mind. The husband laughed and said "anything is fine". So I chose a pink one for her. He thanked me again.

A few minutes later I was reading my book and I accidentally knocked over into the aisle this little trash pile that had accumulated on the edge of my tray. The husband immediately leaned over to pick it up at the same time I did and we knocked heads. We both kind of laughed, and then he picked up the trash and handed it to me. I put it back on my tray, closed my book, and decided to try to get some sleep.

The next thing I know the couple is in this huge fight about me. The wife was asking what had happened when we knocked heads and why he was leaning over. She accused him of flirting with me. She said a bunch of other stuff I couldn't hear because he told her to lower her voice. I did hear her say some thing about him helping me pick up my trash being disrespectful to her. It was kind of insane. Then I heard her say "No, what happened was you put your dick in her mouth". I guess the guy had recently had an affair or something. I heard the word "attorney".

The fight lasted for the next two hours, and then the wife put on her headphones and ignored the husband for the rest of the flight. While I feel for her having to deal with her husband's infidelity, I was only trying to help by offering a straw. I would have done the same thing if she had been sitting on the aisle seat. I felt bad that an innocuous kindness had caused a big fight.

When we landed I saw them again at the baggage claim. The wife was sitting on the floor by herself sulking. The husband was walking around with the kid. I decided to wait outside until the bags came to avoid having contact with either of them.

And of course the baggage loader had a problem so it took 45 minutes for my luggage to come out...but I decided to not be unhappy about that. There are enough unhappy people in the world I think.

floods, bugs, emotional hugs

Early this morning I was at my customer site, and I went into the mess to get some hot water for my tea. The water thing was out of water, so I decided I would change the barrel thing by myself.

I removed the empty barrel, ripped the seal off of a new barrel, picked it up, and started walking towards the water thing. I had somehow failed to notice there was a power cord coming out of the water thing (presumably to make the water hot). Anyway, I tripped over the cord right as I was aiming the barrel downward to put it on the water thing, lost my balance and accidentally dropped the water barrel.

Five gallons of water spewed all over the floor. It was A LOT of water. I was like fuck fuck fuck. Then I realized, hey, it's 630 in the morning, no one is in yet, so I left the mess in the mess, and went back to my cube, where I kept laughing hysterically every time I thought about tripping (I would pay so much money to have the whole incident on tape). I am kind of embarrassed I did that, and I would have cleaned up the mess but there aren't even paper towels in the mess.

Luckily, when my customer got in, he immediately wanted to go over to a conference room in the other building. We were there all day, and when we got back to my cube it was 530 in the evening and the flood in the mess was gone.

Then, I realized I had caused yet another problem. I'm working in a SCIF, and no one told me we had to pack out our own trash. I ate two bananas, an apple, and two clementines on monday. I threw the peels and core away in the trash can under a desk in an empty cube. The trash was never taken out so I guess the peels and core started rotting or something. Plus, it's been raining like crazy here. Anyway, there is now an infestation of what the customer called "stink bugs" in the SCIF. They were literally jumping off the wall onto my keyboard when I was trying to go through my email and crawling on the cube walls. And they've even crawled into the honey comb space in the blinds, so all the blinds have dead stink bugs in them.

I don't think anyone has figured out the peels and core were mine. Or maybe my customer knows and he's being polite.

Because, he's really a great customer. Every night when I leave he says "thanks for everything you did today". I've never had a customer do that and it's like getting a little emotional hug at the end of every day. He also is getting really excited about all the architecture products we're creating. And the other day, when I pissed off a commander by saying, in response to a stupid comment, meant to suggest the stuff I was working on had no value, "That would be a great idea if you were presenting it in an insane asylum" (the commander ripped my head off), my customer told the commander "She knows what she's talking about. And if you don't get it, you're fucking stupid". The comment was a suggestion that, rather than research interfaces to a system that's going to be replaced, we just "unplug it and see what happens".

BTW, to get that commander back for being a dick, I devised a bunch of SQL queries to show, on a daily basis, how much work his team is getting done (next to nothing the past few days) vs. how much work my team is getting done (a lot!). The suck thing about that is our stuff is relying on theirs, and the longer they take, the less time we have to get our stuff done. When I showed the program manager what I did he got a smile the size of Texas on his face. He's going to present the reports at the next technical interchange meeting.

As for me, I am going to try to get through tomorrow without fucking anything else up in the office.

feral climbers, crazy catholics, and a barfing barry

In the past few days I've had 3 really bad dreams.

The first, on Sunday, was a dream about an ex-boyfriend of mine. I was in Yosemite with him (for the record, I've never climbed there) and he was leading a 5.8 pitch. I was standing on the ground in this kind of sandy area. He was mouthing off about how hard the climb was (in real life, that was kind of his climbing MO when I climbed with him). Suddenly, he fell. As he hit the ground I realized he had been 20 feet up with no pro in.

Then, all these, I guess I should call them feral climbers appeared out of crevices in the rock. They started mocking my ex. He was laying on the ground. There was blood all over the sand. Then one of the feral climbers threw a rock down and hit him right in the middle of his head (he's almost completely bald). I was like oh my god because a bunch of blood shot out of his head. Then two climbers threw another rock down on him, and it landed on his leg, and the bottom part of his leg shot off and landed about 5 feet away from his body. I kept thinking I should move his body but I was afraid the feral climbers were going to start throwing rocks at me, and I was tied in to an anchor.

They threw more rocks and my ex's body was just getting pulverized. One said "Ha! He'll never be able to get his leg attached!" and another said "It doesn't matter because he's dead". And then I woke up.

Monday night I had a dream that I took my dad, my mom, and my grandmother to some remote area of Colorado. We were following Jeffy, who was on a snow mobile, in my subaru (I was driving). Jeffy started going up this really steep hill that was covered in snow drifts that were really high, and I tried to follow him, but my subaru kept sliding back. My dad was yelling at me so I hit the gas, and this time when we slid back my subaru went off the road and ended up in a ditch. Then these people from what I initially thought was an abandoned mining town appeared. They took us inside a house. I was really worried because my grandmother is old and she was really cold.

They bundled my parents and my grandmother up in these blankets that were magic blankets. Once you put them on they locked you up in this blanket cocoon. My grandmother and mom didn't notice, but my dad did and he was like "Franki, you have to go find Jeffy! We've been captured by crazy catholics!" Then one of the townspeople stood up and started doing this mass thing. I didn't want to leave my family but my dad kept telling me to run. So I ran out in the snow and started running up the hill where I had last seen Jeffy on his snow mobile. I was running as fast as I could and I was having problems breathing and I thought I was going to pass out and then my family would die. And then I woke up.

Last night I had a dream about my old boss Barry. In real life, Barry drinks a lot. Anyway, I was at a bar with my friends Neil, Jamesy, and some other old work colleagues. Barry was really wasted, more so than I've ever seen him. We were sitting outside at a long table at Nottingham's. Barry suddenly lowered his head and puked up this huge stream of fluid. I was like gross, he is so drunk! Neil asked me to help move Barry outside the bar in case he puked again but I didn't want to touch him. So Neil moved him alone (entirely possible, as Neil is about 6'4" and built like a brick shit house, and Barry is 5'5" and maybe 90 lbs soaking wet).

After Barry puked I wasn't having fun anymore so I told everyone I was leaving. Neil said I should bring Barry home with me. I didn't want to because I was afraid he would puke in my car. Neil said if I didn't bring him home he might die, but I left without him.

Then I got back to my parents' house, which was actually my grandmother's house (but my parents were living there), and I told them I wanted to sleep at their house because I was too tired to drive all the way back to my house. My mom was like "you can't stay here, there's someone in your room" and I went upstairs to look in my room, and there was Barry, passed out in my bed. I was really, really mad, so I went downstairs and was like "what the FUCK is he doing sleeping in MY bed?" and my parents said "he got here first". So then they pulled out this mattress from a sofa and told me I could sleep on that, but it was the wrong size, and way too short, so every time I fell asleep I would fall out of it. Then I suddenly realized Barry had died in my room. And Neil came over to see how Barry was and I was afraid for him to go see Barry dead because then Neil would think I was the worst friend ever.

Then I woke up. And, kind of funny, I had fallen out of bed. Which seems like it should be hard to do since I'm sleeping in a king sized bed. For whatever reason, I start sleeping right in the middle of the bed, and wake up in the morning right on the very edge. Or else I end up sideways. This happens even when I build a pillow blockade around myself before I go to sleep. I used to do that when I was a kid, and, hell, I seriously have about 10 pillows on my bed, so why not build a wall with them?

orange you glad it isn't Monday anymore?

I'm always bitching about my clients, so I thought I might mention that I am working with a client this week who, though the project is a shit show and there isn't enough time on the engagement to get things done, showed me two very thoughtful kindnesses today.

First, we were meeting with a team with whom my client has to coordinate. My client brought in doughnuts and bagels, and when I walked into the conference room where our meeting was to be held I saw he also brought in a huge bag of clementines. Last time I was with this client I ate 8 clementines over the course of 6 hours. He remembered. Not only that, he remembered I don't eat doughnuts and that I won't eat bagels unless they are toasted first.

The second thing he did, after I talked the group into having a working lunch instead of breaking, is, when we were ordering pizzas, he asked me what I wanted since he knows I'm picky. Everyone called that pizza the Franki pizza. One of the guys, who is an admiral, made fun of my pizza and then ate two pieces of it. "The Franki pizza wasn't so bad, was it?" I asked him, and he said "Yeah, I feel healthier already", then he rolled his eyes.

Which brings up a funny side note...since I'm in the middle of nowhere WVA there's very few places to eat. So last night I went to the restaurant where we ordered pizza from today to get dinner. I had called ahead, but when I showed up at the restaurant they didn't have my order. The guy finally figured out I called another restaurant with the same name, but that restaurant was located about 70 miles away. He called them and cancelled my order for me. Anyway, he's the one that brought the pizzas today, and as soon as he saw me he was like "Franki! You called the right restaurant this time!"

I refused to explain to everyone why he said that because I knew I would get teased for the rest of my life about it.