Corporate Hippy

I was hoping to get more posts up this week, but I haven’t had the time and/or attention span .. so for now, here’s a few highlights:

• 1/2 yard of margarita goodness, and drinking it while walking down the stip at night
• very cool topless bar on Freemont street, and Freemont street in general
• cool new women’s bike clothes companies, started and run by women, making bike clothes that actually fit women and look very cool
• getting asked for dreadlock advice by a dude who wants his to look just like mine
• got tinker’s autograph on a sweet tinker pic

So far, I’m having a blast .. I like Vegas … Freemont is very cool .. I think we’ll go back there tonight after we see the Blue Men .. w00t!

life hippy

Santa was good to me today.

I LURVE lurve love my new toy. Its been a loooong time since I got to buy a new camera. My last one was used and only a 2.1mp . This one is fancy schmancy 6.0 meg of sweet pixel beauty.

I was inspired. So I knitted it a cute cozy. And I was even more inspired, so I learned how to make i-cord. w00t. Go me!

So far, its been a GREAT vacation

life hippy

Its been a loooong planning process, but in approximately 127 hours, we’ll be on our way to Las Vegas!

This is a first time for me – Vegas, that is. The excuse is Interbike, but I’m hoping for more. As my pal Glen said “leave the responsible Marty at home and have some fun!”. So, that’s my plan. Be warned, all ye who travel with me – don’t look to me for plans and details, I’ve done enough of that already for this trip and now I just want to enjoy it

Hopefully I’ll be able to remember enough of the week to check in here from time to time with reports

Read more…

life hippy

I’m a big fan of Fall.  I love the temperatures, the smells, the color of the sky and of course the apple cider

Fall is the time when I start cooking chilli.  I think about using the crockpot for dinners instead of the foreman grill.  Fall is the time when it feels great to pull the fleece blanket over my legs while watching TV at night.

Its funny how we somehow associate Fall with renewal – kids are going back to school, life gets back to normal after crazy summer vacations, bbqs, picnics and parties.  Fall is always a good time to start over.  Ironic, isn’t it?  Things are dying all around, and we’re making a fresh start….

So, in tribute to this renewal time of year, we spent our rainy Saturday cleaning the basement.  We had two goals – clear a good spot for setting up bikes on trainers, and clean out that old pantry/room that still had stuff in it from the owners BEFORE my parents.  We’ve been wanting to clean that little room out for a couple of years, but just never had the gumption .. Welp, we managed to achieve both of our goals in less than 5 hours!

Now, you’d think that boxing things up to donate to the Salvation Army would be a good thing, right?  Yeah, we agree.  We’ve been boxing things up for quite some time now… Boxing … but not actually donating.  Generally, we fill boxes and leave them in the basement.  This helps no one, btw.  Sal’s Army doesn’t get my crap, and I don’t get any more room in my basement.  Having a bored 19year old step-son solved that problem.

Alex and his younger brother took 2 FULL jeeploads of stuff to Sal on Saturday.   Getting rid of stuff can be kind of addicting.  It feels so good to be rid of all that crap!

Oh, and as we sat down to relax at the end of the day, we found Serenity on HBO!  Not only have we been seriously fiending for a new movie to watch, Serenity is one that we’d wanted to see since it came out, but had never gotten around to it.  What a GREAT end to a damn good day!

So, aside from the basement news (ok, so its boring to all of you, but exciting to me!), we had an awesome ride with Mike and bruiser Greg at Bloomer on Friday.  Mike, Nick and I were all on our SSs, and Greg was slummin it with the slo-folk .. it was a gorgeous night and the ride was great fun!  And on Sunday, we met up with Mike and Tommy for some backroad/Addison Oaks riding.  Nick and I got almost 20 miles in, Mike and Tommy probably had 35+ by the time they finished!

This weekend was one of those when I didn’t absolutely dread going to work on Monday.

life hippy

Every now and then I bring this window up and stare at the empty entry field for 10-30 minutes before I close it and move on to something else.

I’ve had alot going on lately, but just haven’t been inspired enough to post. Really, I don’t think its as much of inspiration as it is a ‘time and place’ issue. Either way, I’m lame.

So .. I was in Chicago last week for a training class… Since I was staying pretty close to Lakeshore drive/trail, I’d brought my road bike with me but didn’t ride it. Mostly it rained or was real windy. I did spend some time walking around the city, had some deep dish pizza, some large bottles of Fat Tire Ale, and made it through 4 whole days without getting in an automobile. It was a nice escape.

This morning I described this job (to my coworker) as being like a mental violation. I mean, the work is good. When I’m doing work, I like what I DO .. but the politics in this place are just unreal. Now, I’ve been around the block a little bit. I’ve worked as a contractor to EDS at GM; I’ve been a contractor to GM; I’ve been a contractor to Ford; and I’ve worked at a Tier 3 Automotive Supplier. I’m no stranger to office politics, to business politics, to crazy mindgames and manipulation for the sake of profit.

But here, there is no profit. Here, the organization is not run by businessmen/women. No. This place is run by nurses and nuns. This is a business envisioned by clinicians and supported by doctors. There is alot of emotion here. We coddle our userbase because we are afraid of them. It is the perception that our userbase (doctors, clinicians) are putting food on our tables, and therefore, they should be treated like saviors.

To make matters worse, our boss has been here so long that he’s forgotten how business-minded organizations run. He’s forgotten what its like to sit in the hotseat and be the hands-on technician supporting these applications and coddling our saviors. He has stepped the full step from worker-bee to manager. He’s even started monitoring our web usage. Lately, he’s been printing old HEAT tickets (IT Trouble Tickets) and leaving them on our desks for us to follow up on.

I don’t mind working hard. In fact, I like having things to do. But these mental games are killing me.

corporate hippy, geek hippy