J.P.

So last night it was insanely hot for this part of the country. When I woke up at 0100, drenched in sweat, I noticed that it was still 81F. This morning at breakfast time it was 79F and the humidity was at 80%. I’m not used to such a warm evening and not having air conditioning in the house is making it mighty hard to sleep at night. Sex is completely out of the question and that makes me cranky.

I said it.

If you follow my Instagram photos (either on Instagram or on the newly built Instagram page available in the menu bar at the top of this page*), you’ll notice that last night I was taking some photos of lightning. I also took a video and posted it on YouTube. The storm in question blew north of us, but it made for some very interesting lightning displays. There was a lot of cloud-to-cloud lightning so the clouds were basically just lighting up in interesting ways. We had a brief sprinkle of rain and some wind, but nothing that was ever going to cool this area down. It was kind of a bummer. I’m in the mood for a wild thunderstorm to blow through; something that’s going to make a ruckus and maybe make the weather station freak out. I like that sort of extreme weather. I always have.

It is currently 90F here at the homestead at lunchtime. Luckily, I figured out how to completely remove the window in my office so that I can have an ample breeze blowing through and keeping it all manageable. The humidity has dropped down to 50% so maybe there’s some relief in sight.

When folks find out that we live in Central New York, famous for its snowfall, they ask how we can live in all that cold weather. Truth be known, I’d much rather be cold than hot. It’s easier to put another layer of clothes on instead of trying to keep cool. If this global warming thing is going to keep things so toasty we might just have to break down and put air conditioning in the house after all.

It has been a year with many highs and too many lows, but I’m wishing the hap-hap-happiest of birthdays to my sister today. Here’s one of my favorite photos from when we were kids. I’m guessing it was taken around 1980, since the house didn’t have siding on it yet and the back porch is just a slab of concrete.

I wish I could find an adult-sized version of that t-shirt I’m wearing. Happy birthday, sis!

You may find this hard to believe but there are times where I am easily distracted. Now, I don’t mean that I go running off into another room because I saw something bright and shiny in there, ok, that only happened one time and I didn’t know it was the ladies’ room, but there are times where something will catch my eye and my brain will have to process it.

Today is the first of two, six-hour days of training for work. Because it is the 21st century, I work for a company that tries to be hip, the team I belong to is scattered all over the country and most importantly, remote training sessions are much easier on the budget, I am watching this training via WebEx and listening in via conference call. Actually, it’s not WebEx, it’s GoToMeeting and the audio connection information on the GoToMeeting should be ignored so that we can dial in with a landline instead (vs using the headset attached to my Mac). I am watching the presentation on my personal Mac because the display is much bigger than the screen on my work provided MacBook Pro.

I sound like an Apple fanboy.

I am an Apple fanboy.

Where was I? Oh yes, distractions.

I noted at the beginning of the presentation that the presenter mentioned one ten-minute break each hour during the day, however, at no time did he mention a lunch break.

Sacré bleu!

Now, I don’t know about most American workers these days but I try to work balls to the wall so I can get my stuff done and get to my lunch hour. I then work balls to the wall in the afternoon so I can get my stuff done and get out of the office at a reasonable time. Now, this might sound like it’s self-serving and quite frankly, it is.

The lack of the mention of the lunch break distracted me. As I pondered over whether we would have an actual lunch break or not during the presentation, I came up with alternate plans on how I would enjoy at least a snippet of a lunch break. This distraction led me to another distraction, and that was that the presentation and training seminar was apparently called “Click Here To Add Text”, but I digress.

I did my best to pay attention and I did learn some things along the way, but that niggling wonder of whether we would get a lunch break or not was always present in the back of my head. What am I going to do?

12:00 came and went. At 12:05 it was announced that we would take a ten-minute break and reconvene at 12:15.

NO LUNCH!

I ran upstairs (luckily I’m working from home today) and made myself a bowl of popcorn because a. I love the stuff, b. I find comfort in popcorn and c. it’s quick and easy.

I rejoined the conversation at 12:14, with a minute to spare. Said conversation was already in progress because they started at 12:13 with the assumption that everyone had already returned.

If we were on GoToMeeting’s audio and video controls they would have seen that I was still away.

Ugh.

The presentation continued as I munched on popcorn and listened to the tinny little voices on the conference call. I used the MUTE button on my phone so that others wouldn’t know about my secret stash of popcorn. I had usurped the lack of lunch during the “Click Here To Add Text” presentation! I made a little evil laugh.

At 12:50 it was announced that we would break for lunch and reconvene at 1:30 p.m.

w00t!

It turns out that the presenters are in Central Time while I’m in Eastern Time. I’m not used to having to bow down to another time zone. I guess they don’t realize that we are in the Eastern Time Zone, the time zone that reigns supreme from the mountains to the valleys and to the oceans white with foam. Stock markets close at 4:00 p.m. Eastern. Prime time television starts at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. I don’t care if you’re still eating lunch when “American Idol” infests the television yet again, that’s not my problem. If you want to see it on time, you’ll move to the East Coast which is the most important.

So now I have 11 minutes left in this Centrally Timed Lunch Hour. I supplemented the clandestine bowl of popcorn with a chicken salad-on-croissant sandwich and a large, unsweetened iced tea from the local Dunkin’ Donuts. I was happy to note that this store closest to the house is back to its old ways with the crankiest employees on the planet again.

And now it’s getting ready to thunderstorm. That will liven up the presentation nicely!