Lopeyland

Kevin,

I’d like to take the opportunity to inform you that I’ve made the decision
to extend the UAT Consultant contracting job to you. I’ve turned in your
name to our Procurement team who will proceed with acquiring the necessary
signatures to get you on board. You might want to follow up on your end but
I’ve been assured we’ll be moving the process along as quickly as possible.

Feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Congratulations!

Damian Merrick
Manager
CS Technology – Maintenance,
Implementation & Training Development

?Twas the day after Christmas: they suddenly knew
all their friends and their neighbors hadn?t a clue
that the big New Year?s bash had been moved to their church
(since their not being home to clean left them in a lurch).

They were in Boston, snug in sis-in-law?s bed,
but visions of chili danced through Kevin?s head.
?What spices to use? What colors to plan?
Should we have a dessert, perhaps even a flan??

This chili thing was annual by Joneses? statistics,
but doing it at home needed serious logistics.
?Let move it to church! They have a kitchen,
and nursery for kids to keep parents from gritchin?.?

?We can bring puzzles, and games entertain,
maybe music and dancing for those who remain.
We?ll have plenty of food, and plenty of space,
now we just need some people to fill up the place!?

So you are invited, with family and friends,
from seven to midnight, or ?til the fun ends.
At Grove and Belt Line in Richardson proper,
and hopefully weather won?t be a heart-stopper.

And when it?s all done, and when we?re all sated,
when some of the music has finally abated,
we?ll say our good nights and each start the new year,
both full of good chili and full of good cheer.

WHAT: 10th annual Jones chili party
WHEN: New Year?s Eve (12/31/03), 7pm-midnight (or later)
WHO: you, and anyone else you want to bring along. Kids welcome! (nursery available, too)
WHERE: First Christian Church, Richardson, TX 75081
Corner of Belt Line Rd. and Grove (about 1 1/2 miles east of Central on Belt Line)
972.235.3583
WHAT TO DO IF YOU CAN?T FIND THE CHURCH: call a Jones cell phone: Kevin?s is 214.417.2720; Laureen?s is 214.417.2721
WHAT TO BRING: yourself, your friends & family, games (we?ll have tons, too), musical instruments (if you?ve always wanted to play with microphones and a live band), and a side dish (but only if you have a favorite you think we might forget to cook).

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Today is a somewhat momentous day on my mother’s side of the family. My mom turns 58 today, the same age my granddad was when he passed away after a heart attack. As it turns out, one of my mom’s brothers has been feeling some of the same “uh-oh” symptoms lately. Sigh.

Happy birthday, mom. As it turns out, your son (the one who is currently writing this from Cambridge (our fair city), MA) is something of a moron. Yes, I (and Laureen and Jacob) are in the Boston metro area to visit Laureen’s sister. We are roughly 20 (if you’re pregnant) or 12 (otherwise) minutes walking distance away from Cambridge’s central square’s T stop. We are currently in what can best be described as Little Portugal. On the way to lunch today at a Jewish deli, we passed by at least 5 Portugese eateries. Strangely enough, we also passed by three travel agents’ offices, all on the same block. I didn’t think that physical manifestations of travel agents still existed outside of corporations.

Getting here was all sorts of fun. We woke up at my mom and dad’s house, electing to go there to spend the night and have someone else drive us to the airport instead of paying the horrendous parking fees. We also had to drop off Chewie to spend the time at Mom and Dad’s. I hope she hasn’t yet been a nuisance. So we wake up at way-too-early a.m. and get ourselves to the airport.

There’s currently a level orange alert going on. What this means in theory is that policemen have the right to search your vehicle before you enter the airport grounds. In practice, most normal looking (i.e. sleepy for that time of morning) families get waved through to the toll booth. Mom graciously drives us up to the terminal, and we unload ourselves into the Delta ticket plaza. Yes, Delta. We actually bought tickets this time, and as a result, we didn’t take American. But we e-ticketed our bad selves away from the line to the self service kiosk. I can’t believe airlines have finally caught up to grocery stores in terms of convenience. Even then, the screen says “Scan your receipt” when there’s no visible scanner. It’s there, but it does take the nice agent hovering over the self-service kiosks a bit to show where the mystical red line is. Yes, there’s at least one agent hovering over the self-service to help people self-serve.

We get through the boarding pass part, and then we get to the checking baggage part. We’ve borrowed the Mother Of All Suitcases from my mom, and we suddenly realize that it’s weighing in at 62 pounds, roughly 12 over what it should to go on the flight without incurring extra charges. So, we do some creative repacking right there in front of several hundred in-line travelers who don’t do e-ticketing. We manage to get the weight down to 51 pounds, and the gate agent graciously not charges us for the extra pound.

(DIGRESSION: Laureen is now reading “Mothering” magazine, and she just mentioned the phrase “Easy expression breast pump bustier” for “hands-free pumping”…put those terms in your search engines and smoke ’em).

We’ve cleared e-ticketing and baggage. It’s now time for security. I’ve actually had the pleasure of going through this once before. Take off the metal, take out the wallet, cell phone, etc. Take off the shoes, blah blah blah blah blah. We both get through security and get to the gate.

We successfully get on the plane, and we’re all buckled in when the flight attendant’s voice comes over “if anyone is a member of the medical profession, please press your call attendant button now.” We have no doctors on board. We have no nurses on board. So the call goes out to the paramedics while we’re still at the gate.

They eventually arrive, and eventually the emergency gets resolved. We’re a bit late, but thanks to strong tail winds, we can get there on time.

It isn’t until we’re in the air that I look down at my hands, specifically my left hand, and realize something terribly, terribly bad has happened. I have managed to leave my wedding ring back at the security checkpoint.

Hoo boy. We decide to try the phone lovingly attached to the back of the headrest in front of us. After ten minutes of waiting on hold, we abandon that and ask the flight attendant for some sort of help. She took down the information, went to the flight deck, and got the captain to teletype the message back to Delta in DFW. A response came back stating “they’d look for it, check baggage services at the destination.”

We arrive in Boston and go to baggage services. No joy there, but by the time we get to Chuck’s apartment (Chuck = Laureen’s sister), I have a phone message from one of Santa’s elves saying that my ring is waiting for me safe and sound in Dallas.

Thank God that nothing bad happened. The indentation on my left hand is a Christmas reminder of how silly I can be at times, especially when I’m all so fired up to get things done that I’m not careful.

It’s going to be a fun holiday.

Once again, happy birthday, mom!