There is a blur of activity at Northrop Grumman early in the week as we work on covering for Lori (who had her ankle surgery on Saturday) and make decisions without the boss (who's out on a recruiting trip).
Tuesday night is the ResourceScout meeting where we start costing the effort that Los Angeles County wants us to perform. We know that we need to keep the costs down in order to get established in Los Angeles County and then branch out from there. I tell the group that if we win more than one or two contracts then we are going to have to start hiring. These are exciting times!
Early on Wednesday morning I receive an email from Person N_V indicating that he has lost his mobile phone, had his wallet stolen, and can only contact me because he remembers my email address and not my phone numbers. New York city is not being kind to Person N_V. Late on Wednesday I track Person N_V's flight back from New York and see that it is delayed two hours due to a nasty thunderstorm. His flight finally arrives near midnight (instead of the scheduled 9:45 pm arrival) and soon we are back home and asleep before 1 am on Thursday morning.
Because I have a meeting that lasts until 6pm on Friday I go to work late. I use the early morning for a good, but cold, bicycle ride around the aquarium. And, because I am late going to work, there isn't as much traffic as usual. I take the opportunity to try out the new motorcycle tires at 138 mph (as read on the digital speedometer) before I slow back down to cruise to work at a nifty 100 mph. Life is so good!
Friday night is a relaxing night after a long week. Before sleeping I have conversations with Person T*, Person Dao, Person N_V, Person Roy, and Person J_VKPI.
I'm woken up by somebody tapping on my bedroom window at 2:15am on Saturday morning. It is Person N_V. After going out with friends and me asking him if he had fun, Person N_V responds with, "I didn't really have much fun. I wanted to be with you."
I'm up at about 6 am to run 5 miles and this is followed with me dropping the truck off for an oil change and doing the Aquarium loop ride for 16 miles as the mechanic does his thing. On this day, because it rained within the past week, the gates to the LA River trail are locked. So I have to lift the bicycle over the gate and climb over myself in order to use the river trails. And, of course, I have to do the same thing when I finish the ride and want to go pick up the truck.
Person N_V and I try to run some errands for him, but roadblocks get in the way. So Person N_V heads back up to K-Town and I perform other errands. I get in a two hour nap late in the afternoon before going for a long walk and before the telephone starts ringing.
I head up to a club in West Hollywood where I meet Person N_V and his friend Huy as well as Person J_VKPI. Present at the club tonight is the CYIEG (cute young indeterminant ethnicity girl) and I keep staring at her eyes. The music is pretty good tonight but the crowd is a bit lower than usual. I wander around aimlessly as I listen to the music and feel the good presence of Person N_V. There's this attractive guy who keeps wandering past me and establishing eye contact tonight. I give a friendly smile back as I normally would but somehow I convey, without actually speaking to him, that I am spoken for. I drive over to Person N_V's apartment and we read together in bed for a while before the lights go off and deep sleep is had.
I wake up and the clock says 7:30 am. Knowing that Person N_V needs some extra sleep right now from the extra stress of his business trip and losing his phone and wallet, I get up and head for home to tidy up a bit. But when I get in the truck the clock says 6:45 am. Person N_V has not changed his alarm clock to standard time. One of the neighbors catches me as I drive into the driveway and we have the conversation that she starts with, "Just getting home from last night again, huh? You must have had a lot of fun!"
After 3 diet Cokes and a bit of time with the newspaper, I jump back into the truck and head for Northrop Grumman. There is a Monday morning deadline for design review charts that has to be met.
The Sunday night ice hockey game is a good one. We spot the opponents two goals in the first period but keep skating hard to even the score after two periods and finally win, 4-2. Our goalie keeps us in the game with a huge number of saves.