A whole lotta work; a tiny bit o' knittin'

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Still workin' in Maryland. Vendor #3 is in the midst of their demos, one more day to go. And then one more vendor to endure next week and we'll be done, Done, DONE with the demos.

Alas, there's not been another Voice experience, I'm sorry to report, and the days are a hell of a lot longer and more painful when the presenter isn't daydream-worthy. There was a guy yesterday who was very cute - definitely cuter, physically, than The Voice, but, apparently it now takes an Irish brogue to pique my interest -- corn-fed middle America doesn't seem to cut it, these days. I guess I need to find some work over on the Emerald Isle, so I can be immersed in the brogue, night and day. Although, I might not get a darn thing done, for all the daydreaming that would take place. Does BBC America air any Irish shows?

Speaking of working abroad, there's a slim chance I might get some work in Dubai in the near future, which seems scary and exciting to me, all at the same time. My biggest worry would be what to do about the house and the cats while I'm gone. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

And speaking of Ireland, I came this close to emailing The Voice on Monday -- had a very innocent, business-like email all written and addressed, just had to click the Send button. And then I thought better of it and deleted it. And for all those of you who commented previously, saying, "what have you got to lose?", I'll tell you.

The main reason is that I'd be risking my current means of income. We're prohibited from any contact with the vendors during this system selection process, as it could be seen as bestowing favor on one over the others, or as them having undue influence and perhaps gaining the upper hand and winning the multi-million dollar contract by anything other than the purest of means. If the Powers That Be discovered that there was outside communication, I'd be out on my tail in short order. And in my line of work, getting kicked off a project is a career-killer. It's a small, incestuous world I work in, where everyone knows everyone, and word gets around fast. So, no, I won't be contacting him anytime soon, if at all. But his voice is in my head as I drift off to sleep at night, and I'm satisfied with that, for now. Almost.

Tonight, after the interminable work day was over, coworker L. and I barely made it to All About Yarn in Columbia before it was too late. Darn this job, cutting into my yarn shopping time! In the ten minutes before they closed, we did get a chance to fondle some mighty fine yarns, including Claudia's HandPaint, Cherry Tree Hill, Blue Heron's Rayon Metallic, some recycled silk, and many other lovelies. Neither of us bought anything, though, but if given more time, I think we both would have talked ourselves and each other into it. We have vowed to try to get there again next Monday, hopefully earlier. L. did tell me that by comparison, Lettuce Knit in Toronto is only about one-third the size. I found that very surprising, having heard a lot about that Canadian shop, (doesn't the Harlot knit there?). Whatev.

I'm so proud of myself -- I actually finished a UFO this week. The Eros scarf, she is done. Finished it on the train on Sunday, bound off in my hotel room that night and wore it Monday morning with my blue suit. I like it! But those ladder/railroad-type yarns are a pain to knit with. With every stitch you have to make an effort to pick up both sides of the ladder. I'm definitely going back to some smooth, worsted weight yarn for the train ride home!

I will share pictures of the FO this weekend, as well as a few from this week's travels. Stay tuned!

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Home Sweet Home

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Week One: Vendor Demo Sessions = Complete. Two more weeks to go.

Sigh.

And the bloom is off the rose, as far as train travel. Of course, the fact that the train was an hour late, incredibly crowded, and it was 103ºF on the unshaded platform might have influenced my feelings a bit.

Not good news.

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Train station, my vantage point.

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Far too close to my vantage point: trifecta -- men's room, supply closet, garbage.

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Not captured by the camera:

• Middle-aged woman with the long purple hair. (You're really too old for that, lady).
• Hunky 30-something guy in business suit who stripped down to his form-fitting t-shirt. (Thank you, so very much, hunky guy, for that. You made my miserable day a tiny bit better.)
• Foreign (German?) tourists in hiking clothes and back-packs. (I don't envy your American vacation just now).

The business class car was PACKED. Not a free seat to be found except next to the woman who refused to move her purse to let someone sit next to her. Those kinds of people peeve me. Of course everything peeved me yesterday, as I was cranky from little sleep and hot and irritable. The ride home seemed interminable. And there was no knitting of any kind.

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I came home and slept 10 hours last night, though. And my house is cool, despite the heat. Thank you, inventor of freon. There's a special place in heaven just for you.

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In other news, and at the risk of labeling myself a crazy stalker, I Googled The Voice. With one click I found out his home address and home phone number, (too much information! although it still appears he's single!), his political affiliation, and how much he donated to that political party last year. (I forgive him for his political affiliation -- everyone has flaws, right?)

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One click, people. Google is a scary thing.

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I plan on doing NOTHING with that information. Although I now know how to email him.

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NOTHING. I swear.

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Unless/until I come up with the perfect, (non-crazy, non-stalker), excuse to email him. The wheels are still turning....

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Is there such thing as love at first sound?

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So, I'm still here in Maryland -- helping to coordinate and faciliate the first week of vendor system demonstration sessions for my client. Part of my roll is to attend the sessions and make sure the presenter and participants stay on track and don't run out of time before everything is demo'd during each four hour session. This can make for a painful and boring day, depending on the skill (or lack thereof) of the vendor representative. Yesterday was particularly rough, and I was expecting more of the same today.

But everything changed when HE started talking this morning.

He had an accent. It took me awhile to pinpoint it, as it was more of a lilt than an out-and-out brogue. He is Irish. And cute in a sort of geeky-techy kind of way. Not movie-star handsome that would turn your head, just pleasantly cute, no more or less so than many men in their early 40's, most of whom are married and therefore not for consideration. Seeing him for the first time, you wouldn't normally (and I didn't) give him a second look.

But that voice.

That Voice.

I have never in my life had such an instantaneous, visceral reaction to a man's voice. I spent the entire morning staring at him from the back of the room, trying not to grin at him like an idiot, as I fell head over heels for a man I'd just met, based solely on his voice.

If you've ever seen that movie, The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, The Voice sounded exactly like Angus McFadyen, that hotty-hot actor who played Sandra Bullock's fiance. Yum.

And as fate would have it, I was facilitator for his afternoon session as well. By then I stopped paying attention to his words and his demonstration, and just let myself get carried away by the sound of his voice to daydreams of what our children would look like and if we'd have the wedding in Ireland or the U.S. (I decided we'd have two weddings - one in each country). I then began to plot how I could get my hands on one of his business cards, but couldn't think of a single plausible excuse, especially as we consultants are supposed to remain vendor-neutral, (neutral - ha!), and shouldn't really have any contact with them outside of the demo sessions. As a subcontractor, I don't carry business cards myself, or you better know I'd have accidentally dropped one near his laptop computer. I know his name and his employer, and from that could most likely figure out his email address, but I can't think of a reason to contact him that isn't either creepy, or vaguely unethical, or both.

During the mid-afternoon break, I dragged co-worker L., (of the hockey stick story), into the room with me, to hear The Voice. She couldn't really appreciate it like I did, but I chalk that up to the fact that she's happily married. I, on the other hand, wanted to jump his bones. Or at least tape-record several hours of his speech to play each night as I drift off to sleep. He could be reading from the 66,000-page federal tax code - it wouldn't matter. Music to my ears.

I chatted with him a bit after the afternoon session ended -- mainly work-related chit-chat, as I couldn't think of any way to lengthen or personalize the conversation further, especially as he was driving back home to Philly tonight. Never to be seen (or, alas, heard!) by me again.

Perhaps it's better this way. The fantasy is surely better than reality.

It's just too bad I didn't have L.'s hockey stick with me!

;-)

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If I had known that all it took was a hockey stick...

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... I would have started carrying one with me years ago.

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So, I'm in Maryland for work, and we're out to dinner at a fantastic sushi place next to the hotel, and we're drinking wine and swapping stories. One of my co-workers tells us about her experience in the BWI airport last week.

This coworker plays ice hockey, and had a hockey stick with her on her flight back home to Toronto. [Don't ask why she had a hockey stick with her while working in Maryland - it lengthens (and is not integral to) the story].

As she walked through the airport, hurrying to her gate, my coworker said she was stopped at various points along the way by at least a dozen different men who went out of their way to cross the terminal and strike up a conversation with her and ask her inane questions about hockey. All this male attention in the airport was new to her, and she's been flying in and out of BWI every week for months. But this was the first time with a hockey stick.

I was generous and gave these fellas the benefit of the doubt, theorizing that it was because she was carrying something sports-related, and men love to talk about sports. Or perhaps seeing someone carrying an ice hockey stick in Baltimore in July is just so unusual that people can't help but ask questions. But all the questions were coming from men, which was the unusual part.

Our male dinner companion had a different theory, which took him all of two seconds to share. "It's a phallic symbol", he said. "Men can't resist that".

Oh.

I am so naive.

But the scales have now fallen from my eyes.

"Sure -- anything will do. Walk through the airport with one of those tubes that carries blueprints -- that'll work, too."

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So, anyone know where I can get one of those tubes that carries blueprints?


;-)

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This about sums it up

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Yesterday I talked about how my workday was a lot like herding cats. Today, as I expected, has been more like wrestling mountain lions. I've been working for 12 hours and probably have another couple more ahead of me. But right now I'm waiting on a phone call, so I'll post a little something fun here:

Thanks to Peggy for the link to this fun video:

Click ^ to watch

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This really did make my (otherwise wretched) day!

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Herding Cats

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When the house is cool like it is today from our torrential rains, and I'm working from home with countless deliverables and documents due, I spend many hours at my desk.

Speaker phone with mute button - quite handy for conference calls

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Today was busier than most, and tomorrow perhaps even more so. This is my first RFP and system selection project, having spent the majority of my consulting life doing system implementations, and although I'm enjoying the change and the challenge, I'm not sure I'd want to do it again. Much of it is like herding cats. Today we received back all the vendors' responses to the RFP and are working to blind them before distributing to the folks who will do the actual scoring. In the meantime we're also trying to schedule on-site vendor demos for July/August and reference hospital site visits in the fall. All while making sure that each hospital in this multi-facility organization has adequate representation during the RFP design and decision-making process so that none can cry foul when the vendor is finally chosen.

Herding cats, I tell ya.

Speaking of cats, if you're wondering why there's a fuzzy blanket next to the phone in the picture up there, well, at any given time when I'm at my desk and the house is cool, this is what is usually within 3 inches of my left elbow:

Ali - my white shadow, always at my side

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My baby could be the next Chessie

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But don't be fooled by that sweet face. As soon as I get up to get a drink, she steals the warm spot in my chair, especially if her (my) favorite sweatshirt is also in it:

Find another spot to sit, human!

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Wednesday is supposed to be hotter, so perhaps she'll be sleeping on top of the fuzzy blanket tomorrow. But make no mistake, she'll be there. Unless she's hiding in the closet behind the dryer while it thunders.

Tomorrow's agenda: more of the same cat-herding.

I can hardly wait!

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