Today 5Jan2023: Thursday

Another morning that was not welcome and seemed to sneak up on me. I managed to wake up fifteen minutes early, 5:45AM, and then I was utterly and profoundly asleep after ten minutes, and my alarm blasted me awake. Ugly.

I managed to end the alarm on my iPhone without incident (I did not drop it). I staggered to the kitchen and started the hot water for the French press coffee, and set out an NYC Everything Bagel to start defrosting. I then went and did 25 minutes of exercises and stretches. Next, I toasted the bagel after it spent ten seconds in the microwave so I could cut it in half with ease. And then I started the coffee in the press, liberal, and got a yogurt out of the fridge.

I thus started my morning online after finishing my exercises and stretches; two sets are done in my office as one takes a chair and the other a wall. I am feeling better and stronger. It seems to be working.

After bringing all the laptops to life, I reviewed all the issues from work, email, text, and Slack channels at 6:40ish. Nothing was pressing for me. I then read my own personal email. I ate my breakfast while reading all of this. After that, time burning away fast, I rushed into the shower, got dressed, and headed out.

I put my Nike laptop on a shelf as I put on my coat, and it fell and hit the floor. It appeared undamaged, but later the keyboard was now wave-shaped. I pushed it back in, and after a few ominous snapping sounds, it worked again (except for the ‘Delete’ button, which I was not sure was working before). A tiny bit of plastic did break. Again, it is working, mostly.

The same laptop I had set on the passenger seat today went flying when the emergency breaking happened on TV highway when a driver decided to entirely stop on TV highway before turning right–not a best practice. I was lucky that I was not rear-ended when I suddenly stopped. The laptop was undamaged as it landed on Air Volvo’s floor. It was a hard day for notebook computers!

Returning to the morning, I got aboard Air Volvo and did play connect the school buses for a while, but I did arrive before 8 at Clubhouse. I started my three hours of Zoom meetings at 8:30. I had status meetings and a technical meeting on using a tool to revise some master data and related transactional data. The meetings, no details can be put here, left me a bit disquieted. This was followed by WageWorks denying my medical reimbursement for the same invoice they approved in December. This is a multi-thousand-dollar expense for Susie, and I was expecting it to be approved like it was in December. I contacted HR and have a ticket for them to investigate; I told my boss how unhappy I am and will have to appeal, in writing, WageWork’s decision for Nike to reject my expense. I am pissed and depressed about this. I did not need another fight with another outside company doing medical stuff for Nike. I had Allegiance Senior Care revise the wording in their invoice to allow reimbursement, and one had been approved–frustrating.

Aside: I am daydreaming of sending a copy of my appeal to the CEO of Nike with a cover letter explaining this is not my first time with this kind of shenanigans–but I know that fantasy will not improve my results. But it would be lovely to think that John Donahoe would help and make this process easier.

I left Clubhouse for the day; I had lunch at Serena William’s cafeteria at Nike WHQ and talked about trading company stuff for a while with Scott. I have a salad from the excellent salad bar and enjoy the happy place that is the cafe. I also got my exercise in as I parked Air Volvo at the New York City Garage and walked through all the new campus trails. It is lovely, and I look forward to Thursday’s lunch on campus. Then, I worked in the lobby until Scott found me, and we headed to lunch. It is always a gift to work on campus, even for a few minutes.

After lunch and my long walk across campus, Air Volvo took me across Beaverton to the hummingbird house. There I found Susie in her recliner watching TV. She was delighted to see me. We called her mother on my iPhone, and they chatted for a while on FaceTime. I can only show up for twenty minutes or so on a workday, and that disappointed Susie. She is still used to me being there for hours during Christmas.

My picture-taking did not work that well today. Susie smiled after the photo.

With a kiss, I took Air Volvo back and just managed to get back intact. I connected to work and continued my work on vendor patches (called OSS notes for those who speak SAP). I have everything applied and now need to get them tested. I will attempt to convince the project folks that it is better to get the performance and stability fixes in now instead of waiting for an emergency. It is a matter of priority and resources.

I rested for a bit and decided not to write the appeal to WageWorks/Nike letter tonight. I will likely do better with a night’s sleep. I read some more of the Last Magician–I like it.

I went to get things ready in the kitchen. I froze the rest of the Christmas ham (I seem to have an infinite supply of ham) and finished the rest of the Pork Vindaloo (having to toss a bit as it was getting old–next time, I will freeze it after it initially cools). I put away the clean dishes, ran the dishwasher, and assembled the glassware for Gene and Glenda for the next seat of leftovers. I took out the trash. I am thinking jambalaya for next week and being leftovers.

The kerfuffle that is the speaker voting in the USA House of Representatives continued. I watched some of it, and my prediction that they would nominate the former president (Trump) came true. So far, only one vote for Trump as speaker has been cast, but we will see what Friday brings.

I cannot always handle the pile-on I get sometimes, and today seemed just depressing. Thus, I am drinking a dark-as-death beer in Wildwood Taphouse, and I already feel better. It is like the song “everyone knows your name.” I am writing the blog while enjoying dark beer.

Thanks for reading; sorry, I was grumpy.

My Spacejammer laser-cut wood Dungeons and Dragons scale models showed today. More to follow. Excited to get them.