Sweet reprieve

The best part (and I mean the VERY best part) of my two days in Calgary this week was Monday night as I watched Casino Royale on the 42-inch plasma TV in my hotel room and scarfed down a bacon cheeseburger chased by two bottles of Alexander Keith's India Pale Ale.  I lounged on the bed, food tray balanced on my lap, beer ready to hand on the bed-side table.  The movie was great.  I burped and farted whenever I felt like, and scratched if I itched.

The rest of the two days rather sucked.

I was confined to a room incommodious for a group of mostly engineers toting laptops and reading from binders and snacking on muffins and trying -- desperately, valiantly, futilely trying -- to stay awake.  Somebody neglected to inform the hotel maintenance staff that it was snowing and below freezing outside, because the air conditioning tried to keep pace.

Two days.  12 PowerPoint presentations.  Over 900 total slides.  With 12 hours of official instruction, that's about 1.3 slides a minute, every minute, for six hours a day, for two days.  (We also did some tutorial work on a demo computer program, thereby cutting down on the time we could view slides, so our actual rate of information absorption was probably closer to two slides per minute.)

Today I feel like Andy Dufresne from The Shawshank Redemption after he finally emerged from his 300 yard crawl through the prison sewer and burst forth into the glorious wet freedom of a midnight summer thunderstorm.  He was cooped up in that prison for over two decades, and I spent almost two days in the same rigid banquet seat, the ebb and flow of the monotonous drone of Dr. Whatsisface washing over me until my hair follicles grew numb and my ears revolted, citing irreconcilable differences.  Two days doesn't sound as bad as two decades, and I never had unwelcome intruders assailing my exit-only orifice, but neither did I have a hot poster-girl for a veneer over a tunnel bolstering my hope.  I knew my parole date and time but could do nothing to expedite it.  Thus, the kinship I claim is perhaps more warranted than it appears -- Andy and I both revel in our freedom.

Monday night, after the movie ended and I shared my woes over the phone with my wife, I sank into the bed and continued my journey with the Pequod and Captain Ahab's megalomaniacal pursuit of a white whale.  (It's taken me a very long time to read Moby Dick -I'm only halfway now - though not at all because it fails to engage me; but rather because I've allowed myself to be engaged by lesser pursuits when this one could have been given greater precedence, but wasn't.) Mr. Stubb, Mate of the Pequod, has just successfully killed the first whale of the book, and every little bit of what I read is utterly engaging and masterfully written. 

As I lay there reading, I happened to catch the transit of a nearly full moon across the small gap in the heavy drapes obscuring my view from the second floor.  The white light cast fat shadows on the window screen of the snow flakes falling outside, and I heaved several melancholy sighs at the reminder that April marks the seventh consecutive month with unabated snow on the ground.  I'm more accustomed to four or five months.  Seriously, winter can f--k right off about now.

I nearly got to see the newest member of our small group of real life Superfriends.  James, the best man at my wedding, and his wife welcomed their son, Kelson, on the Ides of March, and I had made plans to toss the little bugger about and make all the appropriate ooh-ings and aah-ings expected of visitors to newborns.  But alas, the little mama is feeling some of the post-partum blues right now, so company is at her discretion.  That's when I decided to do the movie, burger and beer thing.

But now it's mid-week, my first day back at the office.  And tomorrow is the last day of the week, Good Friday curtailing an already shortened work week.  I may no longer be any sort of practising Catholic, but I sure do enjoy observing their holidays!

Comments

[Linda]

Oh you poor man. I think I'd've (thanks Emilie!) slit my wrists AND throat after aboot six hours of that. Sorry your time wasn't more enjoyable. Thank goodness for Bond, James Bond.
"...my ears revolted, citing irreconcilable differences." Lol, loved that.
Welcome home, the snow shall pass.

[Moksha Gren]

If it makes you feel better, we've had a cold snap here as well. It dropped below freezing last night and will do so again tonight. Seriously, from 80 to 30 within a 24 hours period...it ain't right.

Sorry the slide show failed to entertain, but glad you enjoyed the IPA. And while I'm happy you get Good Friday off...I'm a bit jealous since I'll be right here trudging away at my computer. So, while we missed you MOnday and Tuesday and will miss you again on Friday...it's good to have you back for a day or two.

[Émilie B.]

Looks like someone over there went all out on the audio-visual support. Just imagine what those tutorial people could've done with the Bond flick budget... scary.

We took out the BBQ Friday last, and took down the whatsthenameforthis car canvas shelter thingie, and my dad's all "well you guys are sure in a hurry: the Easter snowstorm hasn't passed yet" and we're all "pfff". Well we've just had a good batch of snow today over here, too. But let's not despair - that stuff has got to be gone by May! :o

Enjoy the holiday!

[Mark]

I'm taking 2.5 days of vacation this week to do the family Easter thing. Ben and I are on the road, but having a much more pleasant time than you did on your recent escapade -- your movie night the one exception.

This morning, after I finished a bowl of cereal my aunt had bought in anticipation of our crashing here for one night, I looked at the nutritional information.

That cereal might as well have been called Colon Blow, because it has 13 grams of fiber per serving. I had at least half again as much as the stated serving size.

Now Ben and I wait for the inevitable call of Nature.

Sorry to go into that here, but I already posted and felt like sharing.

[Émilie B.]

Ack! My "good batch of snow" from yesterday turned into winter wonderland (you know, without the "wonder" part). Alright I'm adopting your "Seriously, winter can..." as my motto for the day.