I started the day with me, as often happens, falling to sleep after waking up just before my alarm, a deep, comfortable sleep, and then blasting awake to my iPhone alarm–I was laughing this time. I did not even know I had fallen asleep at 5:55. It took a moment to reconfigure to Thursday, and then I checked there were no incidents at the shoe company or with Susie. All clear. I headed into the kitchen, started the water heating, identified a banana, and took my pills. Next, in the living room, I ordered the lights on via Alexa (called ‘Echo’ in my house for all the obvious reasons) and Paul Simon music while I ran through the light day stretches and exercises. Thursday is a light day with full scope done on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and one more day. This takes twenty minutes, and then I make coffee, liberal Exqual Exchange in my French Press, and take a cup and the banana to the office. I am starting to reduce my food intake as my body begins to react (gain weight) instead of using the food to recover from cancer and chemotherapy (I am better).
I reviewed the emails (both mine and those from Nike) and the endless, so it seemed, traffic on Slack for all the work done in the previous two shifts. I read more news on CNN, BBC, and New York Times. So depressing as the death count from the earthquake in the near East has risen to over 20,000 people killed. I saw some Fox News complaints that the China balloon was not shot down and crashed into people in Montana. I will just continue with the eye-rolling. I am waiting for Weird Al to redo China Doll by David Bowie.
Soon it was time to get ready, 7ish, and I showered, dressed, and boarded Air Volo with my Nike laptop. It is a tradition to stick stickers on your laptop like an old backpack. I have a Pride sticker, a few project stickers, a special sticker for our building (Clubhouse–yes, we have a brand), and one that says, “Third Party Data is Nike data that needs a hug,” with a pair of teddy bears hugging. With my sticker-bearing laptop, I reached Clubhouse before 8 and began my hours of meetings. I worked on various crises of the moment and carry-over crises while listening to the status meetings. The progress was good last night, and while there were many issues, none required my attention or even to speak for the status meetings.
I did have one meeting that I had to contribute to, and then more carry-over crises kept me busy most of the morning. I also found my lunch bookended and canceled my lunch with Scott on the Nike WHQ. I did not have the time to travel and make my meetings.
I could slip out at 10:30 and make my Physical Therapy appointment in Bethany. Michael from PT went over things, and I did another set of workouts with more folks. About 45 minutes of talking and working out. No new items, and they were happy with how I was doing. Slow and sure and painless (except for some muscle use). Next, I stopped by Bethany Public House and had a quick bowl of chili with a Diet Coke, sitting in the sun at the bar.
Why yes, I wrote ‘sun.’ It was sunny with blue skies and 62F (16.7C) today. Dry. Unexpected, dare we say unprecedented.
Next, I met with my boss Brad for the mid-year review. This one does not count towards your final rating; more of a dry-run for your annual review. From what I heard, I seem to be the warm blanket for the new folks, and they were pleased to have me work with them and help where I could provide expertise. Nike hired some of the world’s experts (one wrote the book on the software), so I can only give some direction. It is a great team to work with.
After that, I was finally free to head out to see Susie. Thursday traffic for Beaverton was lighter than I expected, and I believe the sun and blue skies caused the local drivers to put away their suicidal driving styles and actually try to make it home safely so they could enjoy the nice weather. Soon I was at the hummingbird house.
Jennifer informed me that Susie was still in her chair, holding out from taking a nap; she was waiting for me. Jennifer got Susie in the wheelchair, and I tried to help with getting Susie a coat, but it mostly made things worse. Finally, we were out the door in fine weather. Susie was as amazed as I was to be enjoying a spring day in February in the Greater Portland Area.
We were not alone. Metzger Park, next to the hummingbird house, was full of kids, dogs, and folks enjoying the park. The benches were dry, and even the grass was not wet. The ground was still muddy. Susie let me push her to the end of the park and back. It is still colder than Susie likes, but we found a sunny spot and a bench, going across the grass to get there, and we called Leta, Susie’s mother. We talked for a while, but Susie kept pulling up the blankets to get warm. The sun helped a bit, but Susie was cold. Soon I got Susie back inside after ringing off and said goodbye with a kiss. It was a short visit as I had to return to work (online).
I found more traffic on the way back to the Volvo Cave. I was soon home and on the next Zoom status meeting. This time I put on the video and did spins in my chair to Queen–the project testing cycle has a theme song. This was my last meeting, and I also continued working on crises that carried over. I sent out updates and then decided to stop.
I made tacos by browning some ground beef from the freezer and items from the pantry. It was so good. I use the standard packet (low salt) and a can of flame-roasted tomatoes. Maybe a bit too sweet for some, but I like it.
I watched Nova (I bought the season) and how they built the new subway under London. It took 14 years, 25 Billion dollars (in today’s dollars), and put 70,000 people to work, and they expect it to last at least 125 years. It always amazes me how little things cost compared to the nearly trillion-dollar defense bill for the USA (all borrowed money) every year. The USA farm support budget is $600 billion (all borrowed). It hurts me to see what can be done considering long horizons.
Next, we had a Theology Pub Zoom meeting which left me disquieted. However, I will not dwell on that here.
I started the blog before the Theology Pub meeting and finished it after the meeting.
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