I had a teeth cleaning on Thursday, fortunately uneventful. In fact I’m apparently doing a great job, I was told as much and it went really fast. A few old metal (amalgam) fillings to keep an eye on, but once they go bad I’ll get new white (composite) replacements. And I’ve got a root canal in my future, but that’s not news—I was waiting for the new year to kick in, bringing with it a recharged medical flex-spending account. Ahh, the joy of pre-tax expenditures.

I spend a lot of time staring at a computer screen, both at work and at home. I’ve been rather blessed with perfect vision thus far in my life, although I think all that near focusing and slow blinking is gradually taking its toll. A few years ago I noticed my eyes would get tired, usually towards the end of a work day. I often find myself resting my eyes, focusing to “infinity” by staring through my screen and seeing double-vision. So I’ve been visiting an opthamologist every few years when I freak myself out enough.

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This past weekend I went to the beach. Yeah, I know it’s January, but it was actually pretty warm few days. I took a comp day to make it a three day weekend. Some friends have a REALLY nice house on Figure 8 Island, which is a private island right near Wilmington, NC. There were 9 of us staying for the weekend, although I was the only single. Man, it would have been nice to have had someone special to share it with.

But regardless, it was a very nicely relaxing weekend. We went walking on the beach every day, picking through an amazing assortment of shells (I found some way cool conches and welks). There were several people with birthdays in January (and mine at the end of December), so Saturday night we had a group birthday celebration, complete with custom made balloon hats. Between that, board games, finishing up my book, long walks, and good beer, it was really a lot of fun.

So the work gang and I went out for lunch today. We decided on the cheap but yummy cheese steak place not too far away. As we got out of the car a police siren caught my attention, as those sorts of things ususally do. Soon a bike cop came in to view on the road about 200 ft away, mostly obscured by a hedge-row. I couldn’t really make out what car he was pulling over, but it’s always sorta fun to see a copper in action so continued to gawk. I saw that he started to slow down so I thought he and the car he was pulling would make a turn into the shopping center we were in.

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My cell phone rang at 3am this morning. It took me a little while to figure out what woke me up and then to dig it out of my jeans. It was my boss calling to inform me that a fairly serious hardware failure had occured. I helped him troubleshoot over the phone, although admittedly my groggy mind was fairly slow on the initial uptake. It quickly became clear that this would a serious amount of work, most of which would have to occur right then or else employees wouldn’t be able to do anything once they arrived at work.

So we spent the rest of the “night” fixing the problem, writing scripts, copying data, etc. I had to bust out the coffee to keep at it all night (I don’t drink coffee much). I finally got back to bed after 8am. I know I’m complaining, but it really sucks to beat the sun up. Though I really feel for my boss and the IT folks, some of those guys didn’t go to sleep until after me, and some never even left the office!? Fortunately these types of work emergencies very rarely happen. I had nearly worked my complete work week by the time I got into the office at 11. So naturally, I stayed until like 5—what a doof.

Not in the street sense of illin, but in the common-medical sense. Yeah, I got sick on my plane flight back from Delaware and went down for the count on New Year’s Eve. So, that sorta sucked—and whatever little bug I had is still hanging on, even though my immune system has whacked it senseless. I’m a bit taken aback at the unfairness of it all, as I took it easy over my xmas break and did nothing that warranted a nasty cold. shrug

I had a good Christmas, it was nice to be with all the family. There was certainly a difference without my grandmother in attendance, but it was still a nice time. The night after Christmas I went out for drinks with a few more old friends, one of whom I don’t think I had seen since graduating high school. But it was fun catching up over cheap Yuengling. It’s weirdly fantastic how strong the affinity is that I have with these people—that I can see them but once a year, yet we can instantly chat just like we did in years almost forgotten, both bemuses and contents me.

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