In pre-marital counseling yesterday, I got to face it: I have an obsessive personality. Whether it’s grades, music, photography, work, women, autocross, I GET OBSESSED.

As with most things, the human fallacy is believing everyone is just like yourself. I realize that most folks are not obsessive, but I am. I not only don’t get balance, I barely comprehend how most people achieve it.

The closest I can come is imagining most other people have a schedule in their mind of what they’re doing at any given moment, and whenever they is over, they drop it (complete or not) and move on the next thing. That would drive me batty, but then, that’s the standard workaholic foible: “I’ll quit when the work’s done” Thing is, the work NEVER gets done.

Today is the day LXK rids itself of 275 people, and at least one of those was my friend. We have a meeting to discuss things @ 3pm. I think me just being here after lunch is a good sign; they were supposed to tell you by noon.

‘Course, I was in meetings until 12…

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• 220 hp

• Super tight suspension

• Limited slip transmission

• Weighs 2200 lbs (400lbs LESS than the Pup)

• Carbon-fiber body panels

• 2000 of ’em worldwide

Of course, it’d be difficult to drive a CF car with acrylic windows as a daily driver, but what a MACHINE…would prolly run with a Lotus Elise or a C6 Corvette on a Road Course; just crank in some negative camber. :-)

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Adlphia is been a poop, so I’m hosting these on imageshack (click on each thumbnail for a larger pic)

Little Lauren, daughter of David + Anne

…

More fun dreams last night. Something about the wedding going wrong and me getting arrested for marrying my cousin…? I mean, I know Bella and I are close, but I’m pretty sure the family tree converges around Adam and Eve, but not before. :-)

Anywho…lots of excitement going on: Twenty-six days to the wedding, the MINI’s been in the shop for diagnosis and it goes back as soon as parts arrive (burnt-out power-window on driver’s side + bad idler pulley + serpentine belt), and work’s, well, bananas (as ever).

Compliments of Fark.com

Yes, Jackson is hell

I now have proof.

went on a book-reading bender from 3-8 today and read all of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

600+ pages at a sitting can cause brain warpage, so forgive me if this rambles. Also, this probably has SPOILERS, so don’t read on if you want to read the book for yourself.

Now in his 6th year at Hogwart’s, Harry’s moved past pissy adolescence into likeable pre-adulthood. Ron, Hermione, and the other Gryffindors are learning about life and love, all while the wizarding world explodes with death and intrigue as Lord Voldemort reigns again.

Woke-up to the gentle tapping of rain against my window and thought: My Car’s outside and the sunroof is up.

…Yup…great…

Anyway, I had this freaky dream that I can’t quite shake. For some reason, my coworker D flew up to New York City, and I followed him, going to a museum that I couldn’t get it because I didn’t have any money but “You can get in for free with a ticket to Seattle”. It ended up that we hung out in a restaurant in the airport by the subway. I don’t remember what we talked about.

I filled-up the MINI for $36.63 this morning…yike

On the bright side, my MPG indicator is reading 37.9 currently :D

Results: (lower scores are better)

Car#     Score     Entrants(Driver,Navigator)  
4          179        Lo Arnold, Phil Schneider  
3          466        Ginny Eager, Robin Murphey  
10         780        Judd Campbell, Kelly Campbell  
7          1030       ???  
9          1119       Jim Lamb, Lynn Lamb  
2          1282       Mark Thomas, Betty Thomas  
8          1354       Ken Hold, Ed Howell  
6          1362       Chris Davis, Kurt Clayton  
1          1532       Grant Goodin, Mark Goodin  
5          1800       DNF--Subaru  

Pics:


top: line of porsches: a 914, Gary’s 968, and a beautiful 930.
bottom: Closeup of the 930

Lexington Gas Prices

Muhahaha….website for finding cheap gas.

7 hours, 3 beers, 4 Sprites, 2 rounds of Gojo, 1 large pizza, and no busted knuckles later, Joes’ maxima has 2 new front struts and a fresh oil change.

I think we could do it now in under 3 hours if we had to do it all over again.

Joe’s upper suspension mount + bushing was making some extreme noises, and since his car has 138k miles on it, he decided he wanted to get some Monroe Sensa-Trac struts, and he asked, “Harold, do you think you want to tackle this?”

If you use Firefox + Gmail, here’s a cool extension that adds the ‘Delete’ button to the gmail interface.

link

Stupid quiz of the week:

WARNING: There’s some VERY obscure stuff on there….

There are few experiences to equal being at work at 8 o’clock at night replying to email from your boss’s boss, explaining why your crack team of developers didn’t deliver on the function your reported was “done” two days earlier.

You know what? I take it back. I’m GLAD I got her fired; we’ll be lucky if she’s the last, given how cavalier everyone’s working these days.

So yeah, here we are, knee deep in code, with my normal unitized team, decomposed into two halves, each working on a significant chunk of work. I had a meeting, told them deliver me three things in 4 weeks: Code, Running unit tests @ 80% coverage, and Documentation.

I came in #3 overall indexed time at today’s event. Unfortunately, Mike took #1. :)

Still, a GREAT day autocrossing.

Fired my first person today.

Well, I didn’t do the firing; my manager did, but she was on my team and I could’ve made it go either way. If I’d insisted she remain, she’d have still been here, but I didn’t. Hence, I fired her.

I feel bad about the finality of it, but it needed to happen. She was unprofessional, and a drag on the morale of other members of the team. Still, the associated sob story is rough: Two small kids, her husband is a lout, and she was a very personable likable woman.

MINI UK Announce Factory JCW Option

Daddy Like! However, this close to the model changeover, I might wait for the 07 and the factory changes….I’d really like to try that 4-door (rear suicide doors) version