Thursday, October 05, 2006
The Return of Lost
Last night, I watched the season premier of Lost, and if you don’t want me to ruin the whole episode for you, you might want to go read something else right about now. I’m a fan of Lost. It’s one of the few shows I watch on TV. Seriously. I’m down to about 5-10 shows. In fact, I’ve even gotten away from CASUAL TV watching. I figure that if I’m going to watch TV, it might as well be something good. TiVo makes that a lot easier, of course. Anyway, yesterday was the season premier of Lost and it was fantastic!
Before I go into last night’s show, I should really start by saying that Lost is one of those shows that continually annoys me. It hasn’t gotten to a CSI-level of annoying, but it comes close. Most of the time, I feel like Lost poses more questions than it answers. I also feel like nothing really happens during a particular episode. And I continually want to scream at the characters, “Answer the fucking question!” or “Ask a follow-up question!”
On Lost, a lot of the characters like to be evasive, answering questions in a philosophical manner. In fact, it’s almost like they’re playing the Question Game on Whose Line Is It Anyway, where you have to answer each question with a question. (E.g. “What are you doing here?” “Why do you want to know?” “What business of it is yours?”) And I just get SO annoyed when people ask questions that aren’t answered. And then I get even more annoyed when the questioner doesn’t follow up. So, if Jack asks Locke a question about the hatch, and Locke says, “Don’t we all have to have something to believe in?” Jack needs to respond, “Fuck you, Locke! I was asking why you ate all the Cheetos! Give me an answer, now!”
But I digress. Yesterday’s episode was great because it actually answered a few questions. First of all, it answered (kind of) who The Others are. The first scene showed The Others in their village as the plane is crashing onto the island. It was interesting to see that all it looked like any other town in any other city. Except that it was in the middle of a tropical island. Another interesting note is that a book club was discussing a Steven King book. I couldn’t see which one it was though. And I’m too lazy to surf through the chat rooms to find the obsessive fan who freeze-framed their TiVo it to find out. My point is that the Steven King book is a lot more current than the music they had in the hatch.
Another revelation was that Juliet (one of The Others that was talking to Jack) said that the Dharma project is over and that they (The Others) were basically what was left over. Also, at one point, Jack tried to escape and flooded the place he was being. Later he said that they were underwater and she agreed.
This led me to wonder whether where Jack was being held was underwater or whether the WHOLE THING is underwater. One of my early theories on where they are was that they were in a BioDome-type of thing, which may or may not be underwater. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense because of all the sunlight and whatnot. But they created sunlight in the movie The Truman Show, so maybe they could do it here as well.
I think the thing that really annoyed me last season was that we didn’t really get any perspective from The Others. This season, so far anyway, we have. I think that really helps shed light on the show. From one perspective, I can see how the writers don’t want to let you know too much. They want you to feel like you’re stranded too, that there are some “people” out there and you don’t know if they’re up to any good or not. That builds suspense, but only so far. What builds more suspense (in my humble opinion) is when you know The Others are up to no good. (By the way, from what the Creepy Other told Kate, they are certainly up to no good.) And so far, the writers have delivered on my wishes. Now, if they can just stop the actors from answering questions with questions….
Before I go into last night’s show, I should really start by saying that Lost is one of those shows that continually annoys me. It hasn’t gotten to a CSI-level of annoying, but it comes close. Most of the time, I feel like Lost poses more questions than it answers. I also feel like nothing really happens during a particular episode. And I continually want to scream at the characters, “Answer the fucking question!” or “Ask a follow-up question!”
On Lost, a lot of the characters like to be evasive, answering questions in a philosophical manner. In fact, it’s almost like they’re playing the Question Game on Whose Line Is It Anyway, where you have to answer each question with a question. (E.g. “What are you doing here?” “Why do you want to know?” “What business of it is yours?”) And I just get SO annoyed when people ask questions that aren’t answered. And then I get even more annoyed when the questioner doesn’t follow up. So, if Jack asks Locke a question about the hatch, and Locke says, “Don’t we all have to have something to believe in?” Jack needs to respond, “Fuck you, Locke! I was asking why you ate all the Cheetos! Give me an answer, now!”
But I digress. Yesterday’s episode was great because it actually answered a few questions. First of all, it answered (kind of) who The Others are. The first scene showed The Others in their village as the plane is crashing onto the island. It was interesting to see that all it looked like any other town in any other city. Except that it was in the middle of a tropical island. Another interesting note is that a book club was discussing a Steven King book. I couldn’t see which one it was though. And I’m too lazy to surf through the chat rooms to find the obsessive fan who freeze-framed their TiVo it to find out. My point is that the Steven King book is a lot more current than the music they had in the hatch.
Another revelation was that Juliet (one of The Others that was talking to Jack) said that the Dharma project is over and that they (The Others) were basically what was left over. Also, at one point, Jack tried to escape and flooded the place he was being. Later he said that they were underwater and she agreed.
This led me to wonder whether where Jack was being held was underwater or whether the WHOLE THING is underwater. One of my early theories on where they are was that they were in a BioDome-type of thing, which may or may not be underwater. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense because of all the sunlight and whatnot. But they created sunlight in the movie The Truman Show, so maybe they could do it here as well.
I think the thing that really annoyed me last season was that we didn’t really get any perspective from The Others. This season, so far anyway, we have. I think that really helps shed light on the show. From one perspective, I can see how the writers don’t want to let you know too much. They want you to feel like you’re stranded too, that there are some “people” out there and you don’t know if they’re up to any good or not. That builds suspense, but only so far. What builds more suspense (in my humble opinion) is when you know The Others are up to no good. (By the way, from what the Creepy Other told Kate, they are certainly up to no good.) And so far, the writers have delivered on my wishes. Now, if they can just stop the actors from answering questions with questions….
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Toolman
Last night I was working in the attic, running electrical to our new freezer when I realized that I’m a bit on the clumsy side. And it’s only a matter of time before I accidentally kill myself doing work around the house. You see, I was walking on the rafters of the attic and I lost my balance. So what did I do? I stepped down on the “floor” of the attic. Which is simply drywall. Which can’t support a large child, not to mention an overweight adult.
Amazingly, I managed to avoid falling completely through the attic and into the garage. Though I did knock down a nice-sized piece of drywall. (Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time I’ve caused a hole in a ceiling in our house. The other time was a result of a plumbing mishap in our master bathroom. This was considerably less annoying since it was only in the garage. And as I told The Wife, I kinda liked the hole in our living room, so I thought I’d add one in the garage.)
Putting a hole in the ceiling wasn’t as bad as I thought. Fixing it wouldn’t have been too bad (it’s about 2’ x 4’). But then The Wife mentioned something absolutely wonderful. She said that would actually be a good place for our attic stairs. You see, our garage attic (because we have another one over the bedrooms) is not easily accessible. Basically, you have to climb a ladder and get through a 2’ x 2’ hole. Of course, we don’t have a ladder that’s high enough. So I have to climb to the top of our ladder and hoist myself up into the attic. It’s really not a problem for me. But for the pregnant wife? It’s not too practical. And if you want to put things in or take things out of the attic? Not very practical either.
This might explain why our attic hadn’t been touched in YEARS. When I went through it, I found sleds that were at least 20 years old. Same with some ice skates. I found some sweet-ass 70’s clothes. Some chain link fencing. A box of personal items that included a note from the State of Michigan sending its condolences to some guy because his wife died. Now, the previous owner said they lived there for over 20 years. And I didn’t recognize the name in the letter. So I’m guessing it was BEFORE the previous owner. Yeah, there was basically just a bunch of old junk up there.
Anyway, since our attic wasn’t readily accessible, we were going to add some retractable attic stairs. You might remember them being used in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Clark pulls down the attic stairs to hide the presents and gets locked up there. Well, that’s what we’re adding. And wouldn’t you know it? The hole that I put in our attic is almost PERFECT for those stairs. So it looks like my clumsiness actually solved another problem of ours. I love it when that happens.
Amazingly, I managed to avoid falling completely through the attic and into the garage. Though I did knock down a nice-sized piece of drywall. (Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time I’ve caused a hole in a ceiling in our house. The other time was a result of a plumbing mishap in our master bathroom. This was considerably less annoying since it was only in the garage. And as I told The Wife, I kinda liked the hole in our living room, so I thought I’d add one in the garage.)
Putting a hole in the ceiling wasn’t as bad as I thought. Fixing it wouldn’t have been too bad (it’s about 2’ x 4’). But then The Wife mentioned something absolutely wonderful. She said that would actually be a good place for our attic stairs. You see, our garage attic (because we have another one over the bedrooms) is not easily accessible. Basically, you have to climb a ladder and get through a 2’ x 2’ hole. Of course, we don’t have a ladder that’s high enough. So I have to climb to the top of our ladder and hoist myself up into the attic. It’s really not a problem for me. But for the pregnant wife? It’s not too practical. And if you want to put things in or take things out of the attic? Not very practical either.
This might explain why our attic hadn’t been touched in YEARS. When I went through it, I found sleds that were at least 20 years old. Same with some ice skates. I found some sweet-ass 70’s clothes. Some chain link fencing. A box of personal items that included a note from the State of Michigan sending its condolences to some guy because his wife died. Now, the previous owner said they lived there for over 20 years. And I didn’t recognize the name in the letter. So I’m guessing it was BEFORE the previous owner. Yeah, there was basically just a bunch of old junk up there.
Anyway, since our attic wasn’t readily accessible, we were going to add some retractable attic stairs. You might remember them being used in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Clark pulls down the attic stairs to hide the presents and gets locked up there. Well, that’s what we’re adding. And wouldn’t you know it? The hole that I put in our attic is almost PERFECT for those stairs. So it looks like my clumsiness actually solved another problem of ours. I love it when that happens.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Bachelorhood Revisited
This weekend, The Wife did me a huge favor. She took Luke and went out of town. In other words, I had the house TO MYSELF! For the entire weekend! And man, did I live it up!
I was supposed to go out for drinks after work on Friday with some of my friends from grad school. But one by one, they started dropping off. By Friday afternoon, the whole thing had been shit-canned. Not a good way to start a weekend of rediscovering my inner bachelor.
To be honest, though, I wasn’t terribly upset about everyone canceling. It gave me something I haven’t been able to do in awhile. Sit at home and watch TV. Undisturbed. I’ve got plenty of TV shows stored up on my DVR, so I opened a beer and started watching. It was wonderful. Luke didn’t materialize out of thin air to shut the doors of our entertainment center. The Wife didn’t magically appear to make me clean out the litter boxes or move furniture. It was quiet, it was peaceful and it was stupendous.
(Of course, the shows that I watched weren’t quite as great. House was fantastic as usual. I think I find that show way too funny. It’s something about House being so misanthropic that appeals to me. I wish I could be him. Not because of what he does, but because he gets away with it. Of course, I wouldn’t mind making a jillion dollars working as a doctor either. On the other hand, he does have to look at blood pretty often. Never mind, I like working as an actuary. I also watched CSI and I’ve just had it with that show. I honestly have no idea why I watch it. I find almost all of the characters annoying. And the storylines lately have become a bit inane. I have a feeling I’m going to be deleting that off my DVR Priority List soon. Law and Order continues to amaze me that it’s still on the air. It’s a decent show, but nothing great. Though the new ADA is hubba hubba HOT. She’s worth the price of admission by herself.)
On Saturday, a neighbor had a poker tournament starting at 5:00. Perfect for a bachelor. I spent the morning working in the garage. We recently acquired an upright freezer from my Papa’s house. (Have I mentioned on here that he passed away a few weeks ago? I seem to have forgotten to tell people, like my friend Scott who helped me pick up said freezer. Oops.) The problem with the freezer? There was no electrical outlet in our garage to handle it. So, I donned my trusty toolbelt and set about righting a wrong.
Actually, I didn’t get any work done on that outlet. But I did install another outlet in the ceiling of our garage. For some reason, the prior homeowners preferred to run an extension cord from the garage door opener to the one outlet by the door (nowhere near where the freezer was going). This was both ugly and annoying, like any woman I woke up with after a night of drinking those first few months after I moved back to Chicago. So I installed an outlet in the ceiling (via the attic) to plug the garage door opener into. I also set it up so that I could run electrical to a new outlet for the freezer. For some reason, I love doing this stuff. I’m sure I’ll end up electrocuting myself, but it’s cool for me to change the functionality of my home.
I also fixed our garage door opener, which was acting up for some reason. I was all prepared to blast Genie (the maker of our 1.5-year-old opener), but after I called them, they sent out a new control panel for free. All I had to do was install it and our garage door would go up and down again. No problemo.
With those two projects done by 11:30, I decided to really live up my bachelorhood. I went to the local theater and saw Superman Returns. It was the first showing of the day (at 12:30) and it was basically me, a senior citizen, and 2 dads with their kids. I really liked the movie. It wasn’t as good as Spider-man or even X-Men. I can certainly understand why it didn’t do well at the box office. The problem was that after I saw it, at no time did I ever think, “I’ve got to see that again.” All I could think of was how cool it is that Superman comes back from space to be a Super Homewrecker. (Spoiler Alert!) You see, Lois Lane is married and has a kid. And all Superman can do is stalk her and hit on her and try to break up her marriage. I thought he was supposed to be morally superior to the rest of us. Nice to know he’s not. But how would you like to be Lois’s husband? How on earth are you going to compete with Superman?
(Norm MacDonald, by the way, has a funny bit about Superman. Basically, he gets Clark Kent to admit to him that he’s Superman. Then, whenever Clark has to suddenly “disappear” to save the world as Superman, Norm also disappears. Then he comes back later saying something like, “I was just in the bathroom, not saving the world as Super – never mind.” All this so Norm can sleep with Lois Lane.)
By the way, I had a frozen pizza for dinner on Friday and lunch on Saturday. I followed that up with movie theater popcorn. I’ve discovered something odd since I started working in May. I’ve more or less forgotten how to cook for myself. I don’t think I’ve forgotten, per se, it’s that I’ve gotten very lazy. I think I’m also getting spoiled by having a stay-at-home wife. So now I almost expect food to magically appear in front of me. And when it doesn’t, it’s hard to think beyond “two slices of bread, cheese, and roast beef.” Hell, I was mildly impressed with myself last night when I went through the “effort” of grilling up a burger on the George Foreman. Seriously. I used to grill out every night. I’ve got a killer recipe for pork roasts and I love steaks. But lately, frozen pizzas just sound so much better.
Anyway, after putzing around the house for another couple of hours, I headed over to my neighbor’s poker game. It was a lot of fun because I don’t get to play cards very much any more. He set it up so that there was a new 6-8 person mini-tournament starting every hour or so. So if you got knocked out early, you didn’t have to wait around long to play again.
As it turned out, I didn’t have to worry about getting knocked out early. I won the first tournament! This isn’t the first time I’ve won a tournament, of course. In fact, if I’m going to win a tournament, it’s going to be the first time that I play with a bunch of people. After playing with me once, most people can figure out my habits. For example, I’m pretty aggressive. I’m also pretty stupid, especially when I get drinking. That was exhibited in my second tournament, which I lost. After 8 or 9 beers.
As I mentioned, this was the first time I’ve played cards with this group. Unfortunately, I was myself. That is, I was sarcastic and obnoxious. I like to give people a hard time whenever I can. (Yes, it’s just one of my qualities that The Wife finds SO endearing.) I know I was overly sarcastic to some people, which was no doubt misinterpreted. Not that I mind. In fact, I kind of look forward to the moment when people realize just how sarcastic I am. It’s almost like a light goes off. “Oh, when you said I played that hand well, you were being sarcastic. And when you said I was smart? And good-looking? And a pleasure to be around? And not even remotely smelling of vomit? Fuck you!”
Anyway, I spent Sunday doing more putzing. I cleaned up the garage a little. I watched some more TV. Mostly, I prepared for the verbal assault I would get from The Wife for doing virtually nothing all weekend. To my surprise, it never came. I think The Wife realizes that this was as much a vacation for her as it was for me. Actually, I think her vacation comes this weekend when she goes up to the family cottage with some of her mommies. And no kids. Which of course means that my vacation has officially ended.
I was supposed to go out for drinks after work on Friday with some of my friends from grad school. But one by one, they started dropping off. By Friday afternoon, the whole thing had been shit-canned. Not a good way to start a weekend of rediscovering my inner bachelor.
To be honest, though, I wasn’t terribly upset about everyone canceling. It gave me something I haven’t been able to do in awhile. Sit at home and watch TV. Undisturbed. I’ve got plenty of TV shows stored up on my DVR, so I opened a beer and started watching. It was wonderful. Luke didn’t materialize out of thin air to shut the doors of our entertainment center. The Wife didn’t magically appear to make me clean out the litter boxes or move furniture. It was quiet, it was peaceful and it was stupendous.
(Of course, the shows that I watched weren’t quite as great. House was fantastic as usual. I think I find that show way too funny. It’s something about House being so misanthropic that appeals to me. I wish I could be him. Not because of what he does, but because he gets away with it. Of course, I wouldn’t mind making a jillion dollars working as a doctor either. On the other hand, he does have to look at blood pretty often. Never mind, I like working as an actuary. I also watched CSI and I’ve just had it with that show. I honestly have no idea why I watch it. I find almost all of the characters annoying. And the storylines lately have become a bit inane. I have a feeling I’m going to be deleting that off my DVR Priority List soon. Law and Order continues to amaze me that it’s still on the air. It’s a decent show, but nothing great. Though the new ADA is hubba hubba HOT. She’s worth the price of admission by herself.)
On Saturday, a neighbor had a poker tournament starting at 5:00. Perfect for a bachelor. I spent the morning working in the garage. We recently acquired an upright freezer from my Papa’s house. (Have I mentioned on here that he passed away a few weeks ago? I seem to have forgotten to tell people, like my friend Scott who helped me pick up said freezer. Oops.) The problem with the freezer? There was no electrical outlet in our garage to handle it. So, I donned my trusty toolbelt and set about righting a wrong.
Actually, I didn’t get any work done on that outlet. But I did install another outlet in the ceiling of our garage. For some reason, the prior homeowners preferred to run an extension cord from the garage door opener to the one outlet by the door (nowhere near where the freezer was going). This was both ugly and annoying, like any woman I woke up with after a night of drinking those first few months after I moved back to Chicago. So I installed an outlet in the ceiling (via the attic) to plug the garage door opener into. I also set it up so that I could run electrical to a new outlet for the freezer. For some reason, I love doing this stuff. I’m sure I’ll end up electrocuting myself, but it’s cool for me to change the functionality of my home.
I also fixed our garage door opener, which was acting up for some reason. I was all prepared to blast Genie (the maker of our 1.5-year-old opener), but after I called them, they sent out a new control panel for free. All I had to do was install it and our garage door would go up and down again. No problemo.
With those two projects done by 11:30, I decided to really live up my bachelorhood. I went to the local theater and saw Superman Returns. It was the first showing of the day (at 12:30) and it was basically me, a senior citizen, and 2 dads with their kids. I really liked the movie. It wasn’t as good as Spider-man or even X-Men. I can certainly understand why it didn’t do well at the box office. The problem was that after I saw it, at no time did I ever think, “I’ve got to see that again.” All I could think of was how cool it is that Superman comes back from space to be a Super Homewrecker. (Spoiler Alert!) You see, Lois Lane is married and has a kid. And all Superman can do is stalk her and hit on her and try to break up her marriage. I thought he was supposed to be morally superior to the rest of us. Nice to know he’s not. But how would you like to be Lois’s husband? How on earth are you going to compete with Superman?
(Norm MacDonald, by the way, has a funny bit about Superman. Basically, he gets Clark Kent to admit to him that he’s Superman. Then, whenever Clark has to suddenly “disappear” to save the world as Superman, Norm also disappears. Then he comes back later saying something like, “I was just in the bathroom, not saving the world as Super – never mind.” All this so Norm can sleep with Lois Lane.)
By the way, I had a frozen pizza for dinner on Friday and lunch on Saturday. I followed that up with movie theater popcorn. I’ve discovered something odd since I started working in May. I’ve more or less forgotten how to cook for myself. I don’t think I’ve forgotten, per se, it’s that I’ve gotten very lazy. I think I’m also getting spoiled by having a stay-at-home wife. So now I almost expect food to magically appear in front of me. And when it doesn’t, it’s hard to think beyond “two slices of bread, cheese, and roast beef.” Hell, I was mildly impressed with myself last night when I went through the “effort” of grilling up a burger on the George Foreman. Seriously. I used to grill out every night. I’ve got a killer recipe for pork roasts and I love steaks. But lately, frozen pizzas just sound so much better.
Anyway, after putzing around the house for another couple of hours, I headed over to my neighbor’s poker game. It was a lot of fun because I don’t get to play cards very much any more. He set it up so that there was a new 6-8 person mini-tournament starting every hour or so. So if you got knocked out early, you didn’t have to wait around long to play again.
As it turned out, I didn’t have to worry about getting knocked out early. I won the first tournament! This isn’t the first time I’ve won a tournament, of course. In fact, if I’m going to win a tournament, it’s going to be the first time that I play with a bunch of people. After playing with me once, most people can figure out my habits. For example, I’m pretty aggressive. I’m also pretty stupid, especially when I get drinking. That was exhibited in my second tournament, which I lost. After 8 or 9 beers.
As I mentioned, this was the first time I’ve played cards with this group. Unfortunately, I was myself. That is, I was sarcastic and obnoxious. I like to give people a hard time whenever I can. (Yes, it’s just one of my qualities that The Wife finds SO endearing.) I know I was overly sarcastic to some people, which was no doubt misinterpreted. Not that I mind. In fact, I kind of look forward to the moment when people realize just how sarcastic I am. It’s almost like a light goes off. “Oh, when you said I played that hand well, you were being sarcastic. And when you said I was smart? And good-looking? And a pleasure to be around? And not even remotely smelling of vomit? Fuck you!”
Anyway, I spent Sunday doing more putzing. I cleaned up the garage a little. I watched some more TV. Mostly, I prepared for the verbal assault I would get from The Wife for doing virtually nothing all weekend. To my surprise, it never came. I think The Wife realizes that this was as much a vacation for her as it was for me. Actually, I think her vacation comes this weekend when she goes up to the family cottage with some of her mommies. And no kids. Which of course means that my vacation has officially ended.
It’s a Small World After All
I’m used to living in a small world. The Wife and I have had way too many experiences with this. My favorite one occurred at our wedding, when we reunited freshman-year roommates at Nebraska. I’ve got several others, but most revolve around the fact that both The Wife and I went to U of I, along with about half the population of Chicago. And since we both grew up in the Chicago suburbs, we’re always running into people we know.
But what I experienced at work yesterday was pretty interesting, though not really people-related. I’m still getting used to things here at Geeks Inc., and so I got assigned to a new project so that I could learn about a cool (to me, anyway) software program they have here. (I won’t bore you with the details, don’t worry.) The project involves a company that’s thinking about merging some of its pension plans together. We get to be all smart and tell them “yea” or “nay.”
As we were talking about the projects, I thought I recognized a plan name. It turns out that I DID recognize it. I worked on this plan before, in my Hewitt days. (Geez, I think I can mention them by name. I think I’ve run out of fake names. And I’d just end up screwing up and putting down their real name anyway. Besides, I haven’t worked there in over 4 years. I’m mentioning them!)
Given that I worked in Chicago as an actuary and a lot of companies are getting rid of and consolidating pension plans, it’s not completely shocking to come across a plan that I used to work on. What’s funny though, is that this client indirectly gave me my nickname and the name of this blog. Yes, it was at a meeting with this client that my Hewitt boss unwittingly mispronounced my name (despite knowing me for over a year). By changing the last syllable to “dow,” she started an avalanche of taunting, where my co-workers started purposely mispronouncing my name. My friends picked up on it. It morphed over time. And now the nickname is firmly entrenched and accepted.
Anyway, my point is that it’s a small world the way things keep popping up in my life. And I don’t expect it to stop any time soon.
But what I experienced at work yesterday was pretty interesting, though not really people-related. I’m still getting used to things here at Geeks Inc., and so I got assigned to a new project so that I could learn about a cool (to me, anyway) software program they have here. (I won’t bore you with the details, don’t worry.) The project involves a company that’s thinking about merging some of its pension plans together. We get to be all smart and tell them “yea” or “nay.”
As we were talking about the projects, I thought I recognized a plan name. It turns out that I DID recognize it. I worked on this plan before, in my Hewitt days. (Geez, I think I can mention them by name. I think I’ve run out of fake names. And I’d just end up screwing up and putting down their real name anyway. Besides, I haven’t worked there in over 4 years. I’m mentioning them!)
Given that I worked in Chicago as an actuary and a lot of companies are getting rid of and consolidating pension plans, it’s not completely shocking to come across a plan that I used to work on. What’s funny though, is that this client indirectly gave me my nickname and the name of this blog. Yes, it was at a meeting with this client that my Hewitt boss unwittingly mispronounced my name (despite knowing me for over a year). By changing the last syllable to “dow,” she started an avalanche of taunting, where my co-workers started purposely mispronouncing my name. My friends picked up on it. It morphed over time. And now the nickname is firmly entrenched and accepted.
Anyway, my point is that it’s a small world the way things keep popping up in my life. And I don’t expect it to stop any time soon.
