Once again the organizers of the Tour managed to put the most exciting stages on the weekend. And once again Team Discovery, the supposed best team in the tour, managed to get caught flat footed on the first climbing day after a couple of flat days, just like last Friday. And once again, Lance Armstrong proved himself capable of answering any attacks from the other Big Men of the tour, and dishing it back.
Continue reading “Weekend Update”
Month: July 2005
I’m the man, baby!
I slaved over a project to upgrade version 3.3 of our software to version 3.6, and get it done by the end of last month, because it was absolutely vital that it get delivered to customers at the end of this month, and QA needed to test it. “The future of the project depends on it” sort of thing. I even only took a week of vacation over holiday even though I felt like taking two so I could be there to fix all the bugs they were going to find. So I’ve been sitting here wondering why QA hasn’t touched it yet, being as how half the month is over.
I just got the word – QA ran their first test of it, and it worked 100% correctly. Woo hoo! I’m the man.
Wow! Wow! Wow!
That was the most amazing stage of the Tour de France I’ve seen in years. The peloton falling to peices, all the Big Men being shelled off the back, and Lance pulls up to Popovych and tells him to launch him, and Popovych destroys the three T-Mobile pretenders to the throne, and launches Lance. Five guys left at the front, and Lance sets the pace for a while, and goes to the back of the five to take a quick look, goes back to the front, raises the pace again and slowly kills Basso. Rassmussen, Valverde, Macebo? Who picked them to be up there with Armstrong?
Can Lance keep this up? Can any human challenge him?
Ok, Brain, Stop That!
You know how your brain will suddenly dredge out of nowhere a memory that you would prefer if you never remembered ever again? (I only have the courage to admit that this happens to me because Dave Barry mentioned it, so I know I’m not the only one.)
I was just sitting there minding my own business when the following memory popped into my head. As explanaton, I should mention that I’m not the best person with faces in the world. I see strong resemblances between people who everybody else says don’t resemble each other at all, and I’ll not recognize people after they’ve changed “their look”.
It was back when I worked at GeoVision, so some time before 1993. I was cutting through the conference room that sat squarely between the front entrace and my desk, and I usually did. The lights in the room were quite dim. Coming in the other direction were a man and a woman I worked with, he a sales person and the woman a developer who spent most of her time in (what was then) recent years working at customer sites and training. The woman was normally attractive, but had the most boring hair style in the world. Today, it appeared she’d done a complete 180 in style, and she was looking really good. So as I blew past them at a fast pace, I said “I really like your hair”. It wasn’t until a few hours later that I saw Allison with her normal straight hair. And then it hit me, that the woman whose hair I’d complemented was a complete stranger, and probably a customer or potential customer. I bet she was baffled. I tried very hard to avoid the conference room and training areas for the rest of the day.
Dilated
Is it just me, or does getting eye drops put in your eyes rank just below “assault with a deadly weapon” or “trying (unsuccessfully) to explain to your ex-wife that your daugher’s version of events isn’t correct” in stress levels?
I had an eye exam today, and when they put eye drops in your eyes I have to strongly resist the urge to kick the doctor in the balls and run the hell away. The doctor has to clamp open my eyes with his fingers, but I’m sure if he’d had that device they used in “A Clockwork Orange”, he probably would have used that. It’s a wonder I didn’t bite his fingers as they approached my face. Afterwards I’m panting and sweaty.
I can’t understand how people can practically touch their own eyeballs to put in contacts. I’ve never in my life managed to put eye drops on my own eyes – any good I get from eye drops occurs because some of it stays on my eyelids afterwards and gets into my eyes after the eye dropper is gone and I open my eyes again.
After the exam, I couldn’t see anything close up for hours afterwards. Luckily my distance vision was barely good enough to drive. I had a useless morning at work, even compared to my normal slow Monday mornings.