The devil drives Audi

I found myself in an uncomfortable position this week. My boss wanted to take a coworker and myself on a field trip to another organization. On the surface, at least, her intentions may have seemed magnanimous. However, her motivations are never that clear.

Let me go on record as saying that I think my boss, lets call her "J", is very bright. She cultivates loads of contacts in our field and is highly respected by those outside our organization. She even engenders a certain level of respect within our organization. Unfortunately, J is a VERY unpredictable personality. Ultimately, she is more interested in bolstering her own image than doing what is right for the end user or the organization at large. Many people are afraid of her or simply dislike dealing with her. I have found her delussional, paranoid, and easily riled.

Over the last several weeks, I have been tertiarily promoting a project that she has come out against and has tried to fight in subtle ways (after spending months trying to keep it from coming to fruition at all). There are a lot of political machinations going on surrounding her department and her position in our organization. While she is highly valued for past contributions and her standing in the field, it is finally being clearly recognized that she does not work and play well with others, and that she cannot be left as manager of our department.

My personal discomfort level rose to new heights when she invited us on this field trip. I do not trust her and I really don't want to spend any time with her. Yesterday, when the trip was initially scheduled, my coworker would have made the trip over to the other organization with us, but would have headed off on her own afterwards. This would have left me alone in the car with J for the 40 minute trip back to our office. I could not bear this thought, so much so, that I made myself physically ill with stress.

The good news, I guess, was that the trip was postponed until today. My coworker would be making both legs of the trip with us then. So, while my stomach rebeled a bit, I successfully endured the trip. We were out of the office together for about three hours.

During the trip, we made lots of small talk around personal topics. Unfortunately, she managed to bring up the current contenuous project while we were at the other site. Apparently, some of the disputed software is in use there and has not had an unblemished incumbency. This clearly interested her as she stored information for use in her arsenal against the software that my fellows have been trying to bring into our organization (to replace another more egregiously broken package, which she introduced and has a vested interest in maintaining for purely egocentric reasons).

There is no denouement to this story. I survived. She is still my boss. The struggle will continue.

"Gird your loins"

Lucky duck

This is an amazing story to me.

So, a hunter's wife opens the refridgerator door and one of her husband's 'dead ducks' lifts its head to look at her. So, what does the family do with the duck? They take it to the vet.

Huh?

What amazes ME about this story isn't that the duck lived. It isn't that the duck coded during surgery and they brought it back to life again. No. It's that the HUNTER's family went to all this trouble to revive a duck that they intentionally shot and assumed was dead.

Don't get me wrong. I am VERY happy for Perky the Duck. I just don't get the HUNTER's family. Why didn't the wife just cut the grievously injurred duck's throat when she saw that it was still alive? Her husband shot the duck. They were going to clean it and eat it.

I guess they were overwhelmed with the miracle of the duck's tenacity. Perhaps they were so impressed or amazed with the duck's ability to live through being shot and shut up in a refridgerator for two days that they decided that it deserved to live.

On the other hand, I hope the duck lives someplace other than the hunter's house while he recuperates. If I were him, I wouldn't want to hang out someplace where I could have been dinner, and where (I'm sure) some of his fellows still will be dinner.

Winter finally came

After a very mild December, New England finally got hit with Winter this week. We had several days of single digit temperatures. Last night we even had an inch, or so, of snow.

Our family moved to New England to escape the crowds and muggy summers of the Mid Atlantic. None of us are huge fans of cold weather. However, our driving philosophy was this:

"When it's cold, you can always put more clothing on and/or start a fire to stay warm. When it's hot, if you don't have electricity to power your AC, you cannot take your skin off to cool down."

As I jack up our heat, and shiver with a chill that I cannot seem to get rid of, I repeat the mantra.

Note to self: Buy firewood for fireplace.

While fireplaces are not as effective at heating a room as a wood stove, there is some heating benefit. Plus, there is something comforting in watching and tending to a fire when it's cold out.

An ounce of nickels is worth a pound of...

Apparently, the U.S. Mint is considering revaluing pennies as five cent pieces. The value of the metal in nickels has made them the target of metal speculators. To keep enough five cent pieces, and due to the decreased value put on pennies by most Americans, including me, the mint is considering doing away with the one cent piece altogether, and revaluing them all as five cent pieces.

While that might be initially confusing, it will make all those people who have hoarded piles and piles of pennies suddenly more wealthy. Now, where DID I burry those ammo boxes full of pennies last year?

It's not about the answer, it's about the question

Looking over my last few posts, I noticed that all the titles were posed as questions. I wondered why that was. Maybe it is easier to creatively respond when answering a question. I don't really feel like I have answers to most of the questions that absorb my mind. However, I do feel like I grow as a person every time I think on a question and all the possible answers. It may seem trite. And, this post title was meant to elude to an idea that has become somewhat trite, but that I believe still has value: It's about the journey, not about the destination.

On a related note, I saw a bumper sticker today that made me smirk: "Jesus is the answer". My initial thought was, I didn't know I was asking a question. Then I mused a bit on all the questions that "Jesus" would be a very silly answer for.

• How many angels would fit on the head of a pin?
  
• How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood?
  
• How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Tootsie Pop?
  
• Who shot J.R.?
  
• When will Susan Lucci win a Daytime Emmy?
  
• Is it wrong to wear white after Labor Day?
  
• Is there intelligent life in the universe, including planet Earth?
  
• Does bread usually fall butter side down? (actually, Myth Busters tried to answer this)
  
• Was that the guy-at-the-gym's real hair?
  
• Is fertility inversely proportional to IQ?
  

I really do believe that life is about asking questions, about making the journey. So, anyone who is willing to accept a prepackaged answer is devaluing their life.