Friday, April 28, 2006

In the final installment of the procrastination trilogy, I discover the loop-hole. That's the part where I turn in the 1/10th of the project I've managed to complete and still have plenty of time to improve its quality. In college this was a familiar device: Say a professor wants a paper turned in at 5:00 in his office, with experience you can tell what professors are going to be gone before the deadline. You then take whatever half-asses 8 page report you managed to scribble down on the way up the stairs and slip it under the office door, off to the side with a corner sticking out. You then have until whatever time the professor normally arrives to copy the work that some sucker already did because he was trying to meet the due date, replace the decoy, and get yourself a nice 14 page B+.

In this case, the requirement states to document our progress, not document and approve our progress. I could shit on a Harper's Bazaar and call it documentation. So that's what I did, metaphorically of course. The only reason today was even a deadline is because I leave on vacation next week. I know you, my readers, aren't used to me updating my life in real time; don't get used to it.

  Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Projects not done. I've limited my internet access to email and now blogger. New procrastination ideas are popping up. The company wide softball season is due to start soon and I get the hankering for some batting practice. First blogging, now exercise, I'm running low on vestiges. Here's excerpts of the email I send Byrne, who works nearby:

Know of any batting cages around here? I'm bored. You want to go to some batting cages after work, or during lunch, or hell middle of the afternoon (speaking of which my boss gave me the promotion papers to fill out today), I don't care? Let's do this.

I get the nod for lunchtime batting practice, and I'm psyched. I cannot plan, it's not in me. When I get a whim it must be sated within no less then three hours or the intensity dies and it becomes only mildly enjoyable. Ideally, I perform the intended action within twenty minutes and if that happens, you want to be around for it. We get there at 11:40 AM, cage don't open until Noon. This will not rock quite as hard-core as I hoped, and someone needs to be back at work.

In my own building I start trying to convince people to skip work for a half hour to swing the bat. I'd ask them pretty much exactly what that last sentence says, and the response was typically, "What day?" What do you mean 'what day?' Now dumbass! Let's go! "Nah, I can't I'm busy." I should know better then to ask engineers to do something without planning. Worse, I somehow have a play-date on Friday because one particularly dorky guy thought it was a great idea but only if he could schedule twenty minutes of ditching work at least two days in advance.

I go to confide in a particulars nice lady who has become a trusted confidant. Next to her sits this guy who I've always thought was cool, but never had a reason to talk to. What the hell:

"Dude, do you want to go to the batting cages."

"Right now... yeah sure!"

For a moment I flash back to sophomore year when I convince Jeff Kleinlein to bail on DE to play ping pong, and I instantly relive the next five years of adventures with my new best friend. Could this be happening again, I muse?

"Really?" I ask.

"Haha. No not really."

Ass.

  Tuesday, April 25, 2006

If porn movies have taught me anything, it's that I should have pursued a career in pizza delivery, pool cleaning, gardening, or TV repair. But I'm going to say four words I never though I'd say: I enjoy my job.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I get to play the organ at baseball games or field test playground equipment, but being an engineer is reasonably more fulfilling then I imagined it would be seven minutes into college. I spend most of my day looking at millions of parts in a CAD Database and seeing how they fit together. It’s like I get to play with a giant virtual Erector Set.

However, one thing I don’t like is writing reports. I mean, doing it’s one thing, but to take the time to reflect, organize the information, and make it presentable… ugh, no thanks. One such report is due today, after being due last Monday, after needing to be done the Wednesday before. I’m procrastinating. So intent on avoiding this document that I'll even write for my blog. I just need to do it. This sucks, I thought after school was over you never had to work again.

  Wednesday, April 19, 2006

I share my birthday with my older brother, spotting him 15 years. Although April 19th is by far the coolest day of the year, I was also born on Easter. According to Sant legend, to distinguish between the two my brother reserves the date while the holiday shares the typical celebration of my birth.

Easter's always been a big one for me, more so then I imagine others get into it. But Easter was lame this year. Elsewhere friends were making lamb dinners, family is spending time together; I'm getting jipped. I didn't exactly do a great job of celebrating the resurrection of my savior either. I was sad and homesick and every other quality you don't want to read about in someone's blog.

I won't regurgitate my thought process here, but my birthday would not go down the same path. Armed with an OREO Cheesecake and a Beach Boys CD, I marched into work this morning intent on throwing a surprise birthday party for myself.

To think of a word to describe this event, I come up with "crapsicle." Of the dozen or so people I invited, three showed up. Who turns down free cake? There was no one present to hear me butcher "When I Grow Up (to Be A Man)," I made no new friends, and the cheesecake tasted like failure. I'm all about making your own opportunities. I'll plan my own birthday party, no sweat; I didn't know I'd be planning my own personal suck-fest.

It doesn't matter though. I'm defined by multiple instances of making a fool of myself, or at least that's a much bigger part of me then moping around being miserable. So screw it, I had an awesome birthday, it's those bitches own fault if they don't want to take advantage of me being around. And that my friends will be my year 25 slogan.