Old friends are important

They are a repository of memories you've lost along the way.

Bionic Eyes

I had Lasik eye surgery on January 25. So far I am ecstatic about the results. I definitely would recommend it to everybody. The whole thing lasted about 10 minutes. There was about, cumulative, 60 seconds of sheer visceral panic when you have to will yourself into stillness. Then the 40 minutes immediately after while you are resting in a quiet dim room you are conscious of this increasing pain/discomfort in your eyes and you wonder "What the hell did I do?". But after that it was a breeze. From then on I opened my eyes and already I could see across the room clearly.

Overall the surgery itself was what I imagine being abducted by aliens is like. There was a room. Sporadic bright lights, sporadic blindness, the floating heads of my surgeon and the nurse that would come in and out of my line of sight, disembodied voices and the smell of burning flesh. With that said, it was totally worth it.

I had a next day follow up on Saturday and I was already at 20/20 from my previous 20/800. The doctor said it should get a little better than 20/20 by the time it's all said and done. I have another follow up this Saturday so we'll see what I have by then.

For now I'm just making sure I don't touch my eye and I wear sunglasses when I leave the house to prevent the wind from drying me out excessively and at night I wear an eye guard so I don't accidentally rub my eyes in my sleep. I was prepared to have a couple of blood spots in my eyes until my body flushes out the clots from the broken blood vessels but I only had them for less than a week before they completely dissappeared.. I had to administer steriods and anti-bacterial drops every four hours for this first week as well as a lubricant every 1 hour or more as needed for the next few months. The one hour interval is sufficient if I'm not working but I need to apply it significantly more often when I sit in front of the computer.

The first week it was so incredible. I felt like I had bionic eyes. For the first 2 weeks I continued to make the "taking off my glasses" motion before I stepped into the shower. Now in the third week I am still amazed and often find myself staring out the window of the office to a window of the neighboring office building which is at least a hundred yards away with a big grin on my face as I peep into the activities of that office.

I have to say that I did minimal research on Lasik prior to making and executing the decision. It just felt like the right time when I found out that I was a candidate and had it done within a week of making a decision. This seems to be a notable trend for my best made decisions. Decide and do people. In retrospect I'm really glad because I think I may have been a little more freaked out if I had done the research.

Jobness

As I mentioned, another co-worker left my company. As I result I have inherited her projects some of which she had inherited from those that had left before. I was on the verge of freaking out but I think that I've finally bent my head around it. Still, I mourn the loss of the easy summer I assumed I would have before she gave her notice.

Last week some company big wigs came to our office. Partly to figure out why our region has had so many people leave lately. Partly to inform the accounting department which is the entire first floor that they are being centralized to another state by October. They then immediately had a mandatory pep talk with the entire office during which they did not mention this during the entire talk.

Two weeks ago we got a company wide e-mail celebrating the advent of summer hours in which employees were encouraged to alter their schedule so that they could leave by noon on Fridays. This Tuesday my boss had to tell us that after some consideration those in a position to do so had decided that this was not practical or feasible for our region. Since everybody but the admin staff has incredibly flexible hours it affects a limited group. It's still Indian giving.

That same week an anouncement went out that our office had finally gotten three cars for shared use. It was all very exciting because now we no longer had to subject our personal vehicles to the wear and tear of field work. That is until we were told this week that we couldn't use them for the field.

Today one of the women in my office came to warn me to watch where I stepped because as she was walking down the stairs she saw what she though was chocolate on one of the steps. As she went to brush it aside she felt the unmistakeable sensation of foot settling in poop and the air became musty with that distinct scent. In addition, she informed me that one of the women in accounting had recently spotted a larger poop on the floor in the recess that once contained the building ATM. That woman is convinced it's human.

Catch Up

Still a smoker.

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Went to Boston for St. Pat's weekend here's a recap:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have to limit some of the tale as we have instituted a "What happens in Boston, stays in Boston" policy on some of the events that occurred:

1. Tammy and I left at 11 am and arrived in our hotel at 10:30 pm. Alas, we missed out on making a 4-5 hour drive into a 12 hour journey but hey we and mother nature gave it a shot. Scariest ride EVER...still, there was a sense of accomplishment in making it to Boston alive. NOTHING CAN STOP US *mwahhahhahaha*. As you can imagine we were beat ass tired (I'd been up since 2:45 am in order to work so that I could get stuff done and we could "get in front of the storm"-silly Irene)

2. Saturday we left our hotel at noon and headed over to Fenuil Hall Market Place to start our bar hopping. We were joined by Tammy's friends, mostly chicks and I was relieved that they were multi-colored as I assumed that I would be spending the weeked with a bunch of silly white chicks. They turned out to be cool people. Allow me to introduce the crew:

Jess - Tammy describes her as a taller, curvier Fergie. I agree.

The blonde - I can't believe that I don't remember her name! Total cutie/hottie. Jess's cousin. FUN!
Yasmin - cute, petite, latina? who I could swear I'd met before. She turned out to be the nimble-ist of nimble dancers and if the club we ended up in had a chandelier (it only had an out of reach swing) she definitely would have been hanging off of it.

Kelly - quiet girl of unknown origin but brown...soft spoken...gentle soul...very chill all night

Natasha - Jess's (all of those "esses" can't be right) roommate...beautiful black girl...again very chill can tell a hell of an embarrassing story about her roommate

Adam - The blonde's brother, Jess's cousin, Natasha's boyfriend. Scruffy.

Andy - The blonde's brother, Jess's cousin. We lost him.

Chris - The poor unfortunate soul who was born a year too late. Friend of Adam's. He was due to go into the military Monday so this was suppose to be a last hurrah weekend. Since he was 20 he couldn't join us at the club we were at for the majority of the day.

Tammy - crazy-super-psyched-about-St-Pats-and-I've-got-the-green-glitter-eye-shadow-clover-earings-beads-rings-clover-WAND-never-mind-all-the-shirts-socks-hats-and-pajamas-to-prove-it girl. Maybe you've met?

Irene - I'm in love with that girl!

3. We entered our second bar (called BOSTON ROCKS!) around 1:30/2:00 AND NEVER LEFT....We were just going to pop in for a drink and we ended up stumbling into a very empty club. Immediately after we arrived they started charging a cover so we were super psyched about the freebie but a little skeptical about the lame emptiness of the place. Little did we know. The club was on the second floor Quincy Market so had a pretty good view of the plaza outside. Matt I shit you not people started coming from all directions towards Fenuil Hall Market Place and the place was packed in a blink! The DJ played an amazing set all day. And please note that I keep referring to day because as the festivities wore on and we got more and more wasted we would look out a window and realize that it was still DAYLIGHT out...bizzarre. My body was telling me it was 6 in the morning when it was just turning six at night! Drop Kick's were featured prominantly in the DJ set....The rest of the night is pretty much censored.

4. We all headed to Southie for the parade. Unlike the NY parade this was much smaller and more intimate and you could actually interact with the people in the parade. Odd things seen in the parade (not at the parade but people that were official marchers):

Drunk, drunk, drunk cops. One was ballsy enough to be take shots from a series of test tubes he carried as he marched down the street.

An army of storm troopers, accompanied by Darth Vader

A man riding a car that looked like he made it himself onto which he had attached an almost life sized camel to the front so that the camel appeared to be pulling his makeshift vehicle. And oh yeah...I think it was on some sort of gangsta style pnuematic pumpage thing so that it raised and lowered at will...sweet.

5. Home sweet home on Sunday...a far less stressful trip than our ride up.

Next year is pretty much a sure thing for Boston...open invite...
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Yet another co-worker I liked left and it's really depressing.

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I pulled 7 ticks off of me last week.

Lies Lies Lies

Despite the previous post's insistent tone I have returned to my smoker self. Quiting is hard business.