farts, cars, and bars

Thursday night after class S and I wandered around the parking garage for 30 minutes before we found someone who could help us find our car (for some reason I remembered the four digit number of our parking space and once the garage guy pointed us in the right direction we were able to find it). When we got to the car we discovered someone had keyed the driver's side door. Nice.

We had dinner at Il Porto even though S hates Italian food. Our waiter was Palestinian and he and S had a conversation in arabic, I assume part of which was making fun of me and my hair. Then we went to Union Street Public House for a glass of wine. I was saddened to find my favorite book shop, which I used to visit once a week when I lived in old town, is now a starbucks. Those fuckers.

For some reason everyone was staring at us in the bar. I wonder if it's in part because I get giggly when I drink and S was telling me a story about hiding a fart making machine in the cube of this uptight woman he worked with. He and his boss would go into a glass walled office so they could watch her reaction when they made the machine fart. I was laughing so hard that I couldn't hold my wine glass.

The next morning I woke up with a slight hangover and met S out in the parking lot. We walked over to the rental car and the back bumper was smashed in and the tail light broken. I started unleashing a string of curse words but S found a note on the windshield. It said "sorry I hit your car, please call". We couldn't figure out how the woman had hit the rental car. We were parked in the last space and there was at least 40 feet to the other set of parking spaces. Idiot.

S asked if I made up curse words or learned them. I answered both. Thank you and bless you US Marines.

The two days of classes went really, really well. We even managed to make it to the airport on time. I had to fill out a form about the car accident and the guy servicing the car at Hertz drove us to the airport because, he said, "you don't want to take that bus".

Somehow S manages to get people to do all kinds of stuff like that for him. I need to get his skills. Oh, except for the guy in the office where I was teaching who got upset because S asked him to make a copy. I bet he would have done it for me.

And, to cap off the whole weird trip, at the end of class this kid named T who sat next to me and was always the first to answer my questions (most of the time, incorrectly) walked in front of me, bowed down with both hands clasped in front of him, and said "thank you, your highness, for this class". Awkward. A sales guy from my company started laughing (as did the rest of the students) when T left. He said "I've never seen anyone do THAT before."

S says I should become a writer for a tv show.

faster than the speed of light!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great article about scientists at CERN measuring particles traveling possibly faster than the speed of light.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/09/22/140713791/scientists-report-breaking-the-speed-of-light-but-can-it-be-true?ps=cprs

we don't know where we're going

I arrived in DC today to teach the make up class for the laptop debacle class. I am hoping the events of today are not a harbinger of things to come.

I flew in and did some errands while waiting for my work pal S to arrive. He's not a consultant (he's, eek, in sales) but he agreed to help me out with the class in case there's more problems with the laptops (he's a geek by training but because of moral failings went to the dark side). We got to the office where the class is being held at 4:15. I was told I would have access to the classroom at 4 pm so I could set up. Ha.

We walked into the building and I was trying to look up the floor for the company. S said "it's 4" so we went to the fourth floor. Wrong floor. I found the address and we were supposed to be on the 3rd floor so we took the elevator there. There was a sign on the office door saying we had to check in with reception on the 7th floor. We went there. There was a sign on the office door on the 7th floor telling us to go to the 3rd floor because the 7th floor office had been closed.

We went back to the 3rd floor but the doors were locked and there was no intercom or anything. So I tried to call my contact. She answered and I managed to tell her we were waiting outside the office for her and then my cell coverage went to SOS. S tried to call her on his phone but his coverage was non-existent too. We got someone to let us into the office even though there was a sign on the door saying "NO UNBADGED VISITORS BEYOND THIS POINT" because my contact didn't bother to come out and get us. Ha. We don't need no stinkin badges.

The class room is a disaster (the people using it didn't leave until 430, leaving us only an hour for set up and testing - thanks asspipes!). Three odd shaped tables. One has a piece of metal sticking out of the corner. I just know someone is going to get impaled on it. Some of the power plugs don't work so we had to crawl around under tables to find ones that did work. Our contact is worried she won't have enough badges for the students. The room has, seriously, like 20 extra chairs meaning there's barely any room to move around (a whole herd of the chairs is in front of my white board - I need to use the white board - how I will reach it if they don't move the chairs, I don't know). Ech.

Then S's gps sent us on a wild goose chase through Alexandria trying to find our hotel. We got there, and it turns out the woman S contacted to make our reservation made it for 21 December instead of 21 September. The hotel was sold out of rooms. I could feel the steam starting to come out my ears. After traveling all day and driving in traffic from Dulles and then having to set up the crap class room and spending 45 minutes looking for the fucking hotel the last thing I wanted to be was homeless.

S said "when you get upset you stop looking at people" because I was staring at my blackberry thinking "why can't I just be an application that can live anywhere?" and wondering if S was serious about getting a hotel in Reston and trying to do that shit ass commute back to Alexandria tomorrow morning. In the rain (it's supposed to rain, it's raining on and off now). All the hotels in Alexandria are sold out.

I decided the best course of action was to go outside and smoke. Came back in the lobby after, problem solved. S thinks the guy gave us rooms (he had to over ride the computer system) because of me. I think he meant because front desk guy was afraid I would kill him if he tried to send us to another hotel. Or maybe he meant because I looked so cute in my "I'm not homeless, I just dress like I am" outfit with my blond afro threatening to engulf the lobby.

Yeah, I suffer. But at least this time I'm making someone in sales suffer with me. And, sales people always pick up the tab for dinner, which S did tonight.

You have to be glad for the little happy things in life and ignore all the other shit. Or so people who don't travel as much as I do keep telling me...

because people always think I make this shit up

At 12:30 today I received the confirmation for the class I was supposed to teach today. With the added comment I can't make travel plans UNTIL I receive this confirmation.

My horoscope today said "feel free to ignore and move away from negative energy today". I wonder if I will get an apology from the scheduler. Probably not...

got English?

So last week on Wednesday evening I got an emergency request to teach a class this week in DC. The class was going to happen Tuesday or Wednesday, they weren't sure. So I told scheduling I could do Tuesday but that I was booked Wednesday.

I didn't hear anything back so I sent an email Thursday asking if I needed to change my flight (I'm flying to DC tomorrow) and asking if the class had been confirmed with the client (I can't travel without a confirmation).

So Thursday afternoon I get an email from the training coordinator that just said "Get it confirmed!" There were others cc:ed on the email so I assumed the training coordinator was asking someone else to get the class confirmed ASAP. I am supposed to receive an automatically generated confirmation when the class is "officially" confirmed (they have to enter the new status in a database so a charge code can be generated). I did not receive one so Friday I sent a final "WTF is going on with this class?" No response. Also, the only information I had about this supposed class was the teach location - no contact, no idea who the customer was, etc.

So, as I think any NORMAL person would assume, I assumed I was not teaching the class. Then I get a call at 3 PM yesterday from the customer wanting to go over logistics for the class. I politely told him I did not get a confirmation for the class and then I called scheduling. It turns out the training coordinator meant to write "got it confirmed!" The scheduler insists I should have been able to discern that. She is mad at ME.

Given the amount of classes canceled this year, the amount of last minute engagements that don't happen, not getting a formal confirmation or client information, HOW THE FUCK was I supposed to know there was a typo? Further, why didn't the training coordinator respond back to my email friday asking for clarification (she said she didn't have time to read it and just assumed it was something she could get to on Monday). They, seriously, wanted me to try to get a flight to DC last night (at this point it was 5 PM). Even if I could have gotten a flight it would have gotten in super late and then I would have had to be on site with the customer at 730 am.

A few years ago, I would have tried to make it. Now, fuck them.

The ironic part of the story is that there are two consultants in DC that could have taken the class, thus clearing up the problem, but they didn't want it.

My friend Camile says I should start taking anti-depressants. I don't think they would help.

fucking bees

A bunch of fucking bees have invaded my hummingbird feeder. They've been drinking all the nectar. So far I've only seen one hummingbird. Well, I didn't see him because it was dark but he flew into my hair.

I have to figure out a new way to attract hummingbirds that doesn't involve bees.

the origins of (hee) gas

I've just started up with my chaos class again. I did the first 12 lectures with my dad while we were on vacation 3 years ago but we didn't get through the whole thing. I bought my own copy and am going to complete it in the next few weeks. The class is given by Dr. Steven Strogatz.

One of the things I learned last night is that the word chaos, which is greek, is also the root of the word gas. Makes sense. Gas is a collection of particles flying all over the place.

Think about that next time you're on a plane next to a lactose intolerant middle aged man who's just had an ice cream cone.