Not In The Game

So my head hasn’t been in the game this week. It’s understandable.

Monday was spent taking of Suzan’s second dead goat ths month. The first was a still-born kid, the second was the prize goat she picked up fron a Florida breeder. We thought the goat had broken her neck trying to get under a fence, but the lab results showed she dies from some sort of infection. We’re still waiting to find out what it could be. So Suzan’s small herd has suffered a giant setback. It’s not making her a happy woman.

Work has been zany this week. Busy, messy, scattered. I have to tutor an engineer that’s been transferred to work with me in sales. He’s my counterpart for a different software product group. He’s also named Brian, which is getting confusing. I’m his quasi-manager, so I’m hastily defining some sort of “leadership role”. He’s been in the group for over a week and everybody expects him to instantly be “the man” for the new product. In an organized company, the sales engineer would have been working with the product for several months before the primary launch, not several days (silly management gaps).

I got my new laptop yesterday … 1.8GHz Celeron with a 15.1″ display. I would have preferred a new Intel Centrino machine, but the company won’t spend that kind of coin right now. At least that new technology made my laptop cheaper. The upgrade to a GeForce 4 doesn’t bother me (Unreal 2 + layover in SFO = portable entertainment).

I’m booking two trips this week. I arranged everything for my May trip to WinHEC. It’s four days in New Orleans, with a hotel that’s walking distance to the convention center … right in the middle of the French Quarter. I consider the conference location better than Seattle. The second trip should be booked on Friday, a two week jaunt to the orient. I spend one week of April on Tokyo, the next week in Taipei.

Joy. Rapture. I’m glad the weekend is approaching.