If you are going to do something, do it well.

I'll admit it, I like to play practical jokes. Not small things either. If you're going to do something, I think you should do it well or not at all. I once put 480 tubs of play-do in a co-workers cube for his 40th birthday. When I put up Christmas lights, I try to do 20,000 of them. I've won 'best lights in town' contests twice. I've filled cubicles with balloons, post its, and drink umbrellas. I try to think outside the box on these things.

I've been doing something for a while, I call it small surprises. Typically at work, and always anonymously. It could be a plate of cookies, or a slinky on the desk. Something odd, and it leaves the person smiling a bit. I don't do it for thanks, that's why I do it anonymously. The mystery of 'who did this' is enough thanks for me. It's called spreading kindness, and it works.

I pulled a really good one today. A coworker had her 18-year wedding anniversary today, and we are on the road in Minneapolis. With her husband's idea and consent, I booked her for a 3 hour spa session. Another coworker with us wrote a card "from her husband". Was it cheap? No, but I paid for it with poker winnings, so no cash out of "my pocket" was involved. Was the shock and surprise worth every penny? You bet. My boss wants to figure out a way to reimburse me, but I said no - that's not why I did it. I paid cash, and got no receipt.

So, the moral here is that sometimes you'll notice someone needs a pick-me-up, where something small can go a long way. If you're going to do something, do it well, and reap the reward a thousand times over.

Not the way I intended to spend Father's Day

It's Father's Day. 
Instead of being at home in Corvallis with G and S, my two incredble kids, I'm sitting in a Hilton Garden Inn at Maple Grove, Minnesota.  I'm here on business, and I'm not knocking the purpose of the trip, it's a good thing that I'm here.  I've been here for the last two weeks, and I have one more week to go before I go home.  I'm just not sure if there is a lonelier place to be than in a hotel room by yourself in the middle of the Minneapolis suburbs, when you could be at home having fun with your kids. 
I probably could have flown home on Friday night, had a Saturday with the family, then flown back on Sunday afternoon.  But, as my previous post indicated, airplanes have taken on a new form of punishment for me.  It's a tradeoff.  I'm sure my family would have been happy to see me and all, but my leaving 30 hours later would probably have made things worse than they needed to be.
It may have been easier to get through this weekend if I had something to do, but because we're doing a code and data drop today, I can't get on our system to do any testing.  I'd much rather be doing that, it makes the days blur a bit.

Yesterday was the first day 'off' I've had in a while.  A co-worker, Nate, and I went to the Mall of America.  It was as expected, a huge mall.  It was more like an amusement park with a mall wrapped around it.  The Lego store was cool.  They had some huge Lego scuptures - a helicopter, a 20 foot Transformer, that kind of thing.  Very crowded place, and I dislike crowds.  We had lunch at Dicks, which is an experience of sorts.  Nate got sick from the food.  My hamburger was quite 'pre-processed' and not very good.  I guess I have an iron stomach.
Later, I got a haircut as I was getting a lot 'shaggy', then went to the Russian Orthodox Church of the Resurrection of Christ, which was essentially the front of a house in a neighborhood.  It was a very small church, they had bench seats (which is unusual for a Russian Orthodox Church, but that was probably due to space constraints.  I had a good talk with their Deacon, John.  I got to have a couple of minutes of peace, which was a quite welcome respite from the week.  I'm going to have to return before I leave.
I then went to J Cousineaus for dinner.  Buzztime had it highly rated, so time to give it a try.  It was a pain to find, but once I got there, it was definitely a 'quirky' place.  They had a sign on the door about how they had a #1 bar in the country score a couple of weeks ago.  That's a good sign for a trivia-bar.  The clientelle were an older-than-me type of crowd, and most were playing trivia while watching the US Open.  Nick, the barkeep, was very friendly.  I'm used to walking into strange bars and beating people at trivia.  This crew gave me a good challenge.  One game, I got 12th in the country, and for getting my name / bar name on the 'board', I got a token for a free drink.  Ahhhh... that's why this place is so popular for trivia.  :-)  I had an interesting bacon/cheese/peanut butter hamburger.  It was sweet-salty in a good way.  I really didn't want to leave J Cousineaus as the hotel room has become a very lonely place to be.  But, it was best to check in with e-mail and make an effort to get some sleep.

A lot of co-workers are coming back this week, I suppose that's a good thing.  This last week was rather empty, except for our COO who was there all week.  I'm not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.  He's a nice enough guy and all that, but he also adds a stress level to all of us that isn't really needed.  I'm hoping that my co-workers who were here last week got some much needed time away from this project - they both needed it quite badly.  I'm hoping I can find a quick resolution to the lingering problems.  I'm sure it will be found, but the solution may not be the prettiest in the world.

Acai

What is an acai berry?  Why can't you buy them in a store, but you find acai juice in stuff like vitamin water?  I don't recall ever hearing of acai until about 3 years ago - introduced as some 'super fruit'.  I heard that and thought of one of those fruit-of-the-loom guys as a super hero.  It's Mighty Mango - to the rescue!!  I've never had a raw acai - are they even edible, or is it just the juice that you want?  Perhaps one of these days I'll find an acai bush (tree?) and try one.