Archive for December 11-17, 2000Musings of My Mind
Sunday, December 17, 2000
Status
Okay, first, despite Brian's thinking he isn't any good at parties, he is and we had a really nice time. (Of course, keep in mind that he'll tell you something completely different in his post, I'm sure.) We had our picture taken, the old fashioned way so we won't get it for a few weeks, and I got to drink champagne-- my favorite!! We found all of the people that I work with almost right away and kinda stuck around them for the most part. We went to a palm reader while we were there and, yes, his reaction was as expected-- FAKER!! All-in-all we had a good time and were pretty worn out after we had spent most of the night on our feet.
Today's activities include finishing up a tape for Grammy on the book and getting ready to meet for a late lunch-- yes, it was originally scheduled as a brunch-- with my in-laws and Grammy. Then, we'll be heading over to our friends, Pat & Nathan, to help trim their tree. This was fun last year cuz Pat had her son's kids there to help-- little ones are so much fun at Christmas!!
I doubt that I'll be back to update later so, have a nice day, a nice afternoon, and a nice evening!
Saturday, December 16, 2000Short Stuff
I have to admit: I have done absolutely nothing all day! I've watched PBS mostly but also a Star Trek:DS9 episode during which I fell asleep. Other than that, I've done more of the same-- NOTHING!!!
We've got my holiday party to attend tonight and I'm looking forward to it. I guess that's my excuse: I didn't want to be worn out for the party. Yep, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!!
Hopefully, tomorrow I'll have something "exciting" to report to you but, for today, that's about it-- sorry!
Have a nice evening-- I hope we will!!
Friday, December 15, 2000My Day
What I hate is when I get done with the day and I can't remember anything that I did. I do know that I did stuff, I just can't remember what it was!! That's annoying, isn't it?
Well, let's see, I drafted the rest of the language for Mr. 46 Point, had a meeting with the director and the contract manager for the area to determine if we could do the fine point stuff; then, we made calls to our regions as a "team" to get the status on deals for the end-of-quarter; then, I ate lunch (baked potato with low-fat cheese and lite sour cream and Weight Watcher's "Garden Soup"-- its very good and tastes like Campbell's but without the fat content!) and then, spent the afternoon trying to find my desk. In between, I reviewed a new Canadian agreement that has been handed off to me-- the sales rep has an incredible accent!! She talks just like Peter Jennings!! Too cool!!!
About 3:00 or so, my stomach started acting up which it has been doing a lot of lately-- could be stress related, huh? That's what I'm beginning to think, too. As much as I say I enjoy the stress, it is kinda high at times and it could be venting itself in other forms. I left about a half hour earlier than I normally do and tried to nap when I got home but that didn't work either.
Now, I'm just sorta sitting here-- very lethargic and trying to figure out my next move. Don't feel like doing much of anything but I have to feel better for tomorrow night-- I can't/don't want to miss the Holiday Party at work!! Its going to be fun!!!
The Grinch Goes Shopping!
When I was in one of my meetings today, I came back to my desk to find that "The Grinch" had called to tell me he was going Christmas shopping. The problem with that "Grinch" theory is that he really doesn't look or act it-- he called me from the garage to tell me I had to go hide so I wouldn't see him come in with the packages. I did and when it was safe, returned to the sofa. For the next half-hour I heard wrapping paper crinkle and crackle and tape and scissors and after a few minutes of silence (in which I'm sure he was admiring his work), he sticks his head out. "Close your eyes" I'm commanded and so I do and I hear <moan> <moan> <shuffle> <plop>. He comes to me where I'm sitting on the sofa, kisses me and tells me I can open my eyes. ONE BIG BOX and 3 medium sized boxes!!!
Hmmmmm! D'ya suppose I can shake the boxes while he's sleeping??? Nah!! I'll wait for the surprise!! Sorry-- you'll have to wait, too!!
Have a nice evening!
Thursday, December 14, 2000Thanks a Bunch!
I've gotten a lot of compliments about the new border and background on my homepage-- I'm glad ya'll like it. Something tells me that'll be the last change on that for along time-- its only been 8 months since the last change but, it was, overdue. I'm still working at deciding on borders or not or backgrounds and whatevers on the archive pages but, in the interim, I haven't made any changes to thosse yet. The final decisions on that will be made before the end of the year and the new produciton of 2001 goes into effect.
Con Calls
The conference call with Mr. 46 this morning was more than two hours long!! Gloria, was a little miffed by the end of the call-- the customer is asking for things that she isn't willing to give up and, as a result, she got a little testy after the call. She was fine with the customer although a bit terse in some of her answers but she was definitely testy after the call was finished when we were talking.
This afternoon there was another conference call that was a spur of the moment kinda thing. One of my area's sales reps has a customer who has asked us, on the most recent revision received from them, to support a third party's product indefinitely. NO, we cannot do that! I explained it to John, my AVP and he agreed that we couldn't do that-- the best we can do is follow market trends. If the third party's product goes down the tubes, then it goes down the tubes but we won't be following along after them, thank you.
Whew! That is the kind of thing that I'm always a little nervous about-- will the AVP "require" me to write language to throw us down the tube along with the third party? Thankfully, it hasn't happened yet.
Liar, Liar
D'ya wanna know what I dislike more than anything else in the whole wide world? Liars!! Hate it-- can't do it myself so I guess that's why I dislike it so much in others. The other day, I received an email from the sales rep who is involved in the government agency agreement. The email says that they have "all of our orders on hold" until the agreement situation is resolved. I asked the sales rep at one point how much money was involved and was told it was $700,000. That's a hefty sum to put on hold considering that we haven't said we won't process orders. I can understand his concerns.
I think to myself that I'll try to coerce my contact at the agency into releasing the orders because we're working diligently to complete the agreement and negotiations-- why should they hold them? Makes sense to me. So I call her and ask her. She says she'll check it out with her co-workers in procurement and get back to me about the orders that are on hold. Roseanne called me back a couple of hours later: There are no orders on hold; the only purchase order that has been issued is for $55,000.00.
Marked difference, eh? Thankfully, when Roseanne called, I was at the copier so she left voicemail to that effect. I forwarded that voicemail to my director because the sales rep is jumping all over everyone because the agreement isn't done and his orders are on hold!! Yeah, right!! My director has or is going to forward that voicemail back to the sales rep and his AVP so that he'll (a) back off jumping all over everyone and (b) become fully aware that we know that he's a lying You-Know-What!!
NOW, the good news for the sales rep is that we do not hold grudges-- when you cry wolf, we believe you and if you're lying to us, we just continue on with our job. Yes, the temptation is to say "Contract? What contract?" and put it a whole lot lower on the priority list but, that's not the way that we do business. The agreement is where it was all along-- waiting for feedback from the agency on the agreement. When that feedback comes in, I'll process it along with all of the others-- yes, there are a ton of them right now!!! :>)
Party Time!
As Brian has mentioned a couple of times on his site this week, my company's annual holiday party is this weekend-- he's already dreading it although I plan to introduce him to many of the geeks that I know at the company. He should actually have a lot of fun, despite himself. That's on Saturday night-- last year we didn't stay at the party very long cuz I'd only been at the company a few weeks and didn't know very many people. This year, I plan to stay later at the party and I'm sure we'll have a good time!
On Sunday, we're meeting Brian's parents, Grammy, and his brother Peter and his daughter, Dani for brunch!! I'm looking forward to that, too, cuz Dani is so sweet and special-- all of my nieces (two of them) on Brian's side of the family are sweet and special!! Busy weekend plans ahead, needless to say.
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As for tonight, I'm going to watch my usual nuttiness-- "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" and then read/record some of the book. I'd like to give Grammy a couple of tapes on Sunday when we see her since its been so long since I've given her anything to "read"!! Anyway, I'd best get to it!
Have a nice evening!
Wednesday, December 13, 2000And Speaking of Updates . . .
Last night or the night before, I mentioned something about looking and finding new borders, etc., for the new year. I found a picture that I couldn't resist and, as a result, you'll see a new look on my Home Page here. I thought it was a great picture so I made it into a border.
As much as I'd like to give credit to a website for the contribution (free clipart website), I can't remember which one I got it from. Frankly, someone needs to tell them to re-design their websites: when you open one website, four others open up, too so that you really do lose track of who gave you what for clipart.
Its Only Wednesday!!
I'm tired already! I've got a conference call tomorrow morning at 7:30 with Mr. 46-Point Email. The good news is that the AVP for the area, Gloria, called me today to discuss their open issues list and, down the line, we agreed on our approach for how to handle them. It should be an interesting start to my day tomorrow.
Rumors
Rumor has it that Leah Syroid is back with a vengence-- having a computer can be a dangerous thing. (Man, the stuff she has to put up with him, eh? Just kidding, Tom-- you know we love you!!!) She has email and will be back posting when she has time-- Christmas is coming and she's a LITTTTTTTLE busy!!
Rumor has it that somewhere, in Tennessee probably or maybe in Texas, there is a fat lady singing. Bob Thompson has finally got his wish-- Oh, come on!! We all know that he didn't really vote for the Libertarian party candidate!! That was just a ruse-- he's a Republican, through-n-through!!! (Obviously, we all know that this isn't true but, I've been bugged by Bob a number of times over the past 36 days telling me the fat lady was singing so, I had to get the first post up about that song!)
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Ya know, I'm pretty sure that there are other things I need to tell you about but, I can't remember any of them. Sorry-- I told you I'm tired!
More tomorrow, I'm sure-- I'm thinking I'll be making it an early night tonight!!
Have a nice evening!
Tuesday, December 12, 2000Gone but not Forgotten
Today is the 17th anniversary of my father's passing. It seems so odd to say that-- even today. When I think of it, it feels like that is such a long time ago-- SEVENTEEN YEARS but, in other respects, it feels like yesterday. I remember distinct details of his death and the vigil that we kept in the hospital with our mother. All five of us kids were together with her-- it had been a long time since that had happened. There are a lot of thoughts and memories and feelings bouncing around in my head-- I'll have to write them all out and see what I come up with someday.
"New" Stuff
I'm doing some new layouts and such for my website for the Year 2001-- so far, I've only come across the idea of a new archiving format. I like my "Musings" page format and background so I won't be changing that. I've found a lot of my borders and things on a website called www.boogiejack.com-- they've got some new stuff and it inspires me to write more pages so that I can use the other borders that are there.
If you have any ideas of how I could change my pages to make them easier for readers, please let me know. I'd be interested to at least consider new ideas that aren't my own-- really, I would!! ;>)
Mr. 46-Point Email
Well, well! He's finally written back-- 2-1/2 pages of "issues" that haven't got a subject or verb-- in other words, the issues are not complete thoughts but, things like: "perpetual license means perpetual agreement". Well, the problem with that is that we don't do perpetual agreements; some of our software isn't perpetual, either. Oy!! There's no question there! What is the question????? I have no patience, I'm finding.
I sent a copy of it off to the AVP for the area (not mine) and told her to talk with the customer because they don't have a clue as to how we license our software, even though the sales rep has sat down with them to explain it to them. We'll see what happens . . .
New Email Info
At the top of this page, there has been a change to my email addresses. As of some time around the first of the year, we will be switching our DSL carrier from PacBell to SpeakEasy.Net. I'm really looking forward to it!! Why would I be that interested, you ask? Well, its really simple: a friend of mine sent me an email on April 22, asking us over for dinner. I received that email tonight!!! Needless to say, we didn't make dinner!!
Order of Preference on My Email Addresses:
1. marcia@dutchgirl.net
2. mbilbrey@speakeasy.net
3. mlbilbrey@yahoo.comI can get the email for marcia@dutchgirl.net and mlbilbrey@yahoo.com at work but mbilbrey@speakeasy.net is only accessible from home, at least until after the first of the year. When we only have SpeakEasy, I might be able to figure out a way to download that email at work but so far, we've been having problems with that so don't count on it.
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On that note, I'm going to go off in search of more graphics and ideas.
Have a nice evening, whatever you're looking for tonight (but be careful)!
Monday, December 11, 2000Christmas Update
If you came by early to visit last night, you may have missed a second phase update that I put on the Christmas Page. Brian and I were finally able to take pictures of the young couple that live next door to us so, with that, I went back and updated my Christmas Page last night. So there were two editions of it yesterday-- just go back and look at it to make sure you haven't missed anything.
That's Why There's a Class!!
The reason that I'm going to be talking with my region's sales reps, as I explained on Friday, is that the definition of "assignment" and "transfer" are being misunderstood on a daily basis, if not more frequently!! In fact, the sales rep that wasn't in my area that brought it to my attention is even confused which is really scary-- on Friday he understood but, somewhere over the weekend, he lost the meaning himself.
Assignment: You can assign a piece of paper, i.e., an agreement.
Transfer: You can transfer software.For some reason, that's really hard for people to understand-- maybe our toolkit is different but that's the way it is licensed. I spent an hour on the phone tonight with the same sales rep as Friday explaining why I had written a transfer addendum instead of an assignment addendum on a document that he needed!!! Oh, ARGH!!!! He just didn't get it and the worst part was . . . the whole conversation!!! I was sooooo frustrated by the time that I was done with the call!!! Yes, of course, my management backed me up but it is so frustrating!!!
Other than that . . .
I heard from the governmental agency but things are still in review. I haven't heard from Mr. 46-Point Email which seems a little odd. Don't know that there's anything I can do about that. Oh, well, tomorrow's another day and, since he said he'd have the document to me by Friday afternoon, the fact that I haven't received it gives me the incentive I need to make the call to find out where the document stands.
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I've got the Housekeeper to prepare for and I'm sure I can find the time to work on my cross stitch for a change.
Have a nice evening!
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