The Time Sink

Back to work... Not unlike being at the beach in the surf and watching a really big wave come up on you, knowing you just weren't going to be able to avoid it <g>. Yeah, we move offices next week. ...and there's a ton of prep to do both in macro and micro.

The good news, such as it is, was that when I checked in on the voice mail last night, I only had two messages! ...and only one of those even needs to be handled. ...and when I logged in to my system from home, there weren't any show stoppers in my email. Man, that was one of the few times I wished I had a cam pointing at my desk!

Well, Monday was a full day at the office. ...but mostly because of "Monday" and not so much from my returning to work (although I am more than ready to return to the place where the daytime high matches the night time low here!).

...and I finally dealt with that one bid that was driving me to distraction before I left. I backed the whole thing off when I realized I had a faulty assumption and told all the vendors I'd take a fresh look with a fresh mind. Most interesting: a 35% spread between the high and the low across five vendors. ...and the low bid had the most detailed bid. Most interesting... One would almost think they want our business. ...and yeah, we're familiar with their work, so that's not a issue either. Usually, I have to work a little bit harder at separating close bids; this one turned out to be a slam dunk.

Not much happening this week to post about. I've been head down at work getting things done that are time sensitive and have to do with the office move. I think as long as I don't run out of iced coffee, I'll be okay...

Oh, yeah, there's a tidbit for those of you keeping up with trivia: it's been a month or so since I switched to iced coffees in the morning. My usual round or three of Pepsi Twist is a thing of the past. As a matter of fact, there's a six pack or two gathering dust at home and at work... No, no huge reason; I just tried some one day on the advice of a friend and decided it worked for me.

Just tooling along in full overload mode yesterday, stumbling forward on nothing but caffeine and not much sleep, when I added some adrenaline into the mix just for the heck of it... Well, it sure wasn't intentional, but it sure bumped my attention level up for about three hours.

I was reviewing my contacts files and adding various vendors and people into a mailing label template for notification of our upcoming office move. ...and I ran across one that required a very special license for the product to be shipped, one that is handled at the federal level. ...and whose products can only be shipped to the address on the license. ...the address that will not work in just over a week.

Ya' know the stories where they mention things like "maximum rated speed" and "maximum never-to-be-exceeded rpm"? Well, I'm pretty sure I bumped up against both of those limits in the first few moments and then kept my brain firewalled there for quite a while. ...because that was a show-stopper if ever there was one. ...and I was only reviewing the mailing list to give myself a break from the other stuff that had me already running at full power since I'd been at the office. "Lions and tigers and bears, oh, my!", indeed...

Okay, home stretch time: survive today and it's the weekend. ...and no "<g>" here at all; yesterday was a tough day in a tough week. I thought I'd peaked on Wednesday with the license thing, but Thursday beat it out on raw volume of requests and "gotta' haves". Man...

...and today doesn't look to be a whole lot better: people are starting to remember the things they forgot to plan for and we're on the sharp end of the stick. The good news is that our vendors are coming through wonderfully and taking the load off of Janeen and me. The only problem is that the load transfer system (Janeen and me) is running at something over rated capacity...

Yep, Friday was as crazy as I thought it might be <g>! ...and I knew with Janeen on vacation, it would only get more interesting. What I didn't count on was our courier getting yanked into the jury selection process! Oh, yeah, we back up by department. ...and there was no 'downhill' beyond me! So, off to the mail run and points N-E-S-W at 0930. ...and not back until nearly noon. Bleah. There went that morning...

In the meantime, the inbox was filling up with more "We Forgots"... By the time they were cleared, it was mid-afternoon. ...and almost time to head home. So I started packing some stuff up. One of the problems Janeen and I have been having is that our department needs to run pretty much right on through the move. ...and since she acts as the administrative assistant to the Finance Director, we really can't just box up things early. Nope, the non-essentials like pictures are packed, but the heavy stuff like my DMV files will just have to wait until the last minute.

Friday, I decided to take over the dinner chores for Saturday and maybe even Sunday; Shelley's been working evenings at soccer camp (she's the registrar this year) and frankly, I thought she could use a break. ...and I hadn't fired up the The Beast yet this year!

Yep, that's a set of welder's gloves there; nothing less will let me work with the lump mesquite I use in the firebox.

So Bradley and I gathered up the basics of what we needed and started in after I came back from blading around 1030 or so. It's still early enough in the day that my iced coffee isn't gone yet <g>!

With Brad helping, the tri-tip ended up with a skosh more rub on it than I normally use; but what the heck, it usually works out okay.

Yes, that was a frying pan you saw on that first shot; add in a bunch of country sausage:

...and let cook for about thirty minutes; flip it and add some sauce to the top of the meat and let it have about another half hour and it's ready for what Brad calls "Garage Sale Burgers". I'd like to post a picture of the finished product, but photography was the last thing on my mind when it was ready!

Throughout the day, I just added lump mesquite to the fire box every hour or so. ...and checked the cooking chamber and meat temperatures.

...and eight hours later an unexpected guest stopped by and helped us polish off one of the roasts. Some foccacia baguettes on the side and we were set for a nice time of snacking and chat.

Hmmmm... Maybe ribs next week?