Day 2: Sleepy Friday

The morning was hard at 7:30 as I had only slept since 5ish, and the few hours were insufficient to wake up. I dragged myself out of bed and got started. I made coffee and found a yogurt and a not-too-black banana for breakfast. I found my way to reading the emails, Slack updates, and news. I also reread the diagnosis. I am supposed to hear from the Doctor’s office to plan the next step. They called the wrong number and sent me an email to call them after they were closed for the weekend. I have printed out the info and will call them on Monday. I hope this will not be the usual three to six months to meet with a specialist to do tests for another month and then meet again months later. That was what happened with my colon cancer at first. Hopefully, with an actual tumor diagnosed, I can get on the fast track–this also happened with my colon cancer–once there was a diagnosis, the surgeons lined right up (I had three).

As usual, on Friday, work was just a series of Zoom meetings on status and process. We have some tasks running over their planned durations, so the usual grumbling from leadership was that we needed to catch up and run smoothly over the weekend. This is followed by the regular finger-pointing (or circular firing squad) of the hardware and system people saying to run the software right. The software people will demand more hardware and resources. This is followed by the usual request to find some pixie dust to make it work better. Our team created the pixie dust Excel spreadsheet to run the process and thus prevent any handoff issues. It will run efficiently for the whole weekend. It is quite likely we will magically catch up.

I slept again from ten to noon. I made dinner last night and then put it all in the frig when The Smiths invited me to dinner. I reheated it in the microwave. I added Swiss cheese to the Chicken Cordon Blue, broiled out yesterday. I reheated one sweet potato, which I ate plain. I had a bowl of couscous seasoned with almond slices, cranberries, and Indian-styled spices. I watched some videos from Battleship New Jersey, which covered why modern weapons were not added to the New Jersey when the ship was reactivated by Ronald Reagan’s administration. All the cool systems of the 1980s (some still in use or revised) are too fragile to be placed near the 16″ guns. The missiles added to New Jersey were placed between the funnels to prevent damage from the big guns. The escorting destroyers for New Jersey bristled with these weapons and were on duty to protect the battleship–somewhat ironic.

I showered, skipped shaving, and dressed in time to catch the architecture meeting, which was called again every week to talk about issues. This meeting filled the hour, and I did share my diagnosis of a brain tumor with my colleagues. We talked about many technical items I cannot share here.

I took another nap until the status meeting at 4:35, the last one before the weekend, and we had the described grumblings again. Everyone was respectful and ready; we knew what to do.

I put on my new whiter-than-white Air Force Ones and headed out. I finally selected the GVB in Beaverton for dinner. There I am, enjoying ginger ale and bourbons and beef pot pie. I wrote the blog in the bar. I am slowly feeling better. It is likely the bourbon.

My replacement hat arrived. It is the same style as Dr. Jones’s hat from the movies, but taller and historically correct. It is a soft wool that is thicker than the previous.

Thanks for reading.