My vacation last week in Houston started off well enough. Aside from the stupidity of choosing a flight that had me driving out to Katy during rush hour on a Friday. The Texas Renaissance Festival is something else, they have a massive site complete with permanent structures. Going to the South Florida Ren Fest in Februray isn’t going to be as fun anymore. Sadly my camera ran out of battery after ~240 shots, maybe 2 hours, but the pictures I took are finally online.
Tuesday morning I woke up with the sniffles. I made it out to Spring to visit a long-lost friend, but by dinner time I was full-on sick. I loaded up on OTC cold meds but I was pretty much grounded for the rest of my stay, too sick to even smoke a cigarette. I’m really bummed at having lost my first real chance to explore Texas…
I left for the airport Sunday feeling moderately ok, except for a dull ache in my right ear. By bed time it turned into severe pain and I couldn’t get any sleep. Monday morning I called every ENT specialist in Broward county looking for an immediate appointment. None could do any better than Tuesday so I went to the ER, got a ’scrip for some ear drops that don’t seem to have done much and some oxycodone which doesn’t so much relieve the pain as make me feel so good that the pain ceases to bother me. Good stuff, more please, thank you.
And of course, while I’m waiting for the drugs to kick in and still considering putting a bullet thru my ear to relieve the pain, stuff is blowing up at the office and I can’t help longing for the days when my team was just me. Lately it seems like I’m the calming voice of reason and… that just ain’t right. I’m supposed to be the asshole. It’s what I’m good at, it’s what makes me happy. Being denied that role is seriously screwing with my head.
And now it’s Thursday, and my ear still hurts, and there’s so much work to be done, and I’m supposed to be off next week…
At least I made it to the office today. Spent half the day whipping the test lab into shape. It’s almost there, I can taste it… Soon I shall get to play the asshole card by submitting a dozen system configurations for security approval at the same time, instead of our usual one or two, and watching their heads explode…
