Archive for December 4-10, 2000Musings of My Mind
Sunday, December 10, 2000
And Today . . .
We slept in late for us-- 9-ish. Then Brian played the "Great White Ant Hunter" and "Al" from "Home Improvement", all rolled into one! Not bad, eh? We're having a problem and, if it isn't resolved soon, I think we'll be glad that we'll be moving soon-ish.
I went to the grocery store and stocked up for the week's usual supplies. When I came home, I took pictures from around the apartment and its new developments on the Christmas Front-- see an update on my Christmas Page. I updated that this afternoon but, other than that, I've done absolutely nothing constructive. I haven't been able to accomplish anything that I'd started out to do even though there wasn't very much to do in the first place.
Over the course of the next week, I'm going to have a good enough handle on Christmas that I can start reading my book again-- Poor Grammy must be wondering what has happened to me!! I haven't brought her a tape since before Thanksgiving!! I am hoping to get back to that this week!
Other than that, its homemade pizzas for us tonight-- my mini ones and Brian a mix crust. Hope its good?!!?
Have a nice evening!
Saturday, December 9, 2000Let's See . . .
We started out with a run to Costco-- oh, yeah, one of my favorite places in the world to go two weeks before Christmas!! NOT!!! Actually, it wasn't too bad-- I didn't want to go there and grocery shopping in one day. I figured that would end up ruining an entire day so we split it up; I'll do the grocery shopping tomorrow. I bought a couple of DVDs and a bunch of other stuff-- one of our bigger runs in awhile. Brian got 3 cases of Coke and a new supply of candy bars; the last supply actually turned gray before he had a chance to eat them all-- amazing, huh? Of course, that doesn't mention the two pounds of candy that were left over from gift baskets that he has been eating. That's why the Nestle Crunch went bad-- he had Ghiradelli!!
After we got home and got things put away, we realized that after we had asked his mother about Christmas gift exchange that we still neglected to buy the second present that we needed to get. So, I made the sacrificial run to Michael's Crafts and found our second gift along with some supplies for next year and some fresh potpourri. One of the women that works there once asked me what I did with the stuff I bought so I brought an ornament to her that I had made. She was amazed at how it came out from where it had started. It was fun to show them to her, too-- she gave me the discount for tomorrow's newspaper a day early which was pretty nice, too!
Then, . . . when I got home, I popped some popcorn and put a DVD on to watch "Mission Impossible:2". Brian came out (I forget he's not writing the book anymore and can watch movies on Saturday afternoon with me!) and watched it with me. I made dinner (chicken and veg stir fry) and we watched "Smeg Outs" from "Red Dwarf"-- one of Brian's favorite PBS series from the BBC. That brings me to now when I've just finished the dishes and am writing my post!
What's up for tonight? "Chicken Run" Oh, boy! I can hardly wait. I bought it for Brian cuz he is familiar with the group the wrote or produced or directed it. I'm not familiar with them or could you tell? I'm looking forward to it-- really!
Tomorrow there will probably be a Christmas update so stay tuned . . .
Have a nice evening, okay?
Friday, December 8, 2000Still Waiting . . .
That could be good or that could be bad. Who knows? A couple of other things came in for review but, it appears, that everything is going to wait until next week to hit. Fine. Not a problem-- I've still got three weeks to finish out the business of this year. Plenty of time. I hope . . .
Exciting Opportunity
I was talking with my AVP on the phone this afternoon and John has given me an opportunity that hasn't been given to anyone of my co-workers responsible for any of the other regions. Upon realizing that there was a shortage of knowledge with the sales reps with regard to "assignment" and "transfer", I asked him to make his people aware of what they are doing when it comes to assigning licenses and transfering programs. He suggested that I make a 5-10 minute presentation at the staff meeting that they'll have during the January sales meeting. Pretty cool, huh?
I told my director and a couple of co-workers. We've been having problems with this for several months now. We've got many new and junior sales reps who don't have a clue what an assignment of software licenses can do and how far down the food chain they can end up, often costing us loss of sales elsewhere. Transfering software has the same problem-- it takes money out of their pockets or potentially the pockets of other sales reps in other regions which is not a good thing. Lots to learn on this and the biggest thing to learn is that they don't have the authority to do anything about either of them except call their contract negotiator (i.e., ME) to see what the agreement says the customer can do about assignment and transfer. I'm going to work up a draft presentation and run it by my director-- we may have others do it at their regional meetings if it goes well.
This is one of the reasons I really do like my job! Cool stuff!!
Update on Barb
I spoke with Barb again-- the swelling has gone down and she's doing pretty good. Sometime Sunday, she can be out in public again but, in the meantime, she's doing a lot of quilting and embroidery! Its going to be a "Homemade Christmas" at the Diemer house this year!!
Another medical note: A few weeks back, Brian and I both told you about the daughter of a friend of our's who has been diagnosed with breast cancer. Cheryl had her third chemotherapy treatment today-- the treatments seem to be harder and harder to tolerate every time. She's only got one more after today's treatment and, then it is on to the next phase.
The first thing she'll need is another surgery-- another lump has been found and they need to remove it. Then, it is rest time and then perhaps, more chemotherapy. She has an especially agressive form of breast cancer and it is living up to its reputation. Cheryl needs to go on your "Happy Thoughts" / prayers / whatevers list, 'kay? Man, this is truly scary stuff, ya know?
Connectivity Pains
We've been having some pretty major connectivity problems with our DSL these past few days and now, PG&E is doing stupid things with the electricity. Whenever I get sick of waiting for the DSL to move to a URL, I hit the dial-up button and then it comes in so, I've now found the key to publishing this post. You may have a problem reading the post but, that's whole 'nother story!
For tonight's activities? I'm actually getting to the point where I'm thinking I'm going to un-bury my desk again. It hasn't been that long but I've got some stuff I didn't file away from the last time and there are new things that came in on top of those piles.
Hope your evening is more exciting!
Thursday, December 7, 2000Shoe-Dropping Theory
Today, I spent most of the day waiting for the other shoe to drop. I realize that it is only the 7th day of the month and that there are approximately 16 business days left in the month but, I want those two big agreements to come in!!! I'm nervous about how many changes will need to be made to the government agreements if we have to start from scratch and I'm concerned about how much the purchasing agent doesn't understand about our licensing (yet) on the other agreement and therefore, asks for the changes I made to go away. Then again, there's a new agreement for a huge dollar amount that came in day-before-yesterday that is going through with four changes to the document!! This last deal is for more than the other two combined and they want fewer changes to the document-- go figure!!
There really needs to be some logic applied to how this works-- correction: we're logical we just have to figure out a way for our customers to see the logical side of it, too. We had a meeting today with our new general counsel-- she's new but isn't because she's been the "of counsel" attorney for years. Very bright lady and has some great ideas to get the customer and sales rep to see the right side of the coin. The more I talk with her, the more I like her and, the more I respect our Chief Financial Officer who hired her. Our CFO wanted the General Counsel to come on staff for a long time and, to be honest, it makes sense. She's been doing our business for so long that she knows as much as the rest of us do about the agreements and the business model that we have. Even though she's "new", there's no training cuz she knows so much. To me, with the learning curve on her being a straight vertical line upward, this was the smartest hire the CFO could've made. Gotta respect that, ya know? Indeed!!
Anyway, I'm going to have to wait tomorrow to see what push-back I get on the third big agreement and see if the other two make any movement to responding. The next couple of weeks are definitely going to be interesting.
Glowing Update
I spoke with my cousin this morning to see how she was doing. She is glowing-- can't be around anyone for a few days-- but she woke up with a swollen neck this morning. At the time that I talked with her, she didn't know if it was the iodine collecting in her neck to get rid of the bad cells or if it was a "bad" reaction to the radiation in the first place. I'll check back with her tomorrow and see how its going-- she's got a long, boring weekend ahead of her cuz she can't be around anyone for a few days. Not fun!!
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Tonight, now that we have the laundry done that Brian started before I got home, we're going to do the Christmas cards after the pizza gets here. I think it'll be a fun night of doing Christmas-y things together-- Brian will be the Grinch that he usually is (or pretends to be).
Have a fun night yourself!!
Wednesday, December 6, 2000Sense-O-Humor
Mr. 46-Point Email called today. So the saga continues: according to his end user, we're not going to go to a volume purchase kinda document. We're going to stick with the one that he sent me and I "modified" and modify it some more. He asked me who redlined their document and, when I told him it was me, he said: "Oh, ya know I switched the blue insert color to green and now I've got enough red and green to make a Christmas tree!" My reply? "Well, then print it out and tape it to the wall in the shape of a Christmas tree-- as long as this document is (it was 43 pages!), it'll probably be bigger than the tree you have at home!"
He did explain that the end user has given him a better idea of how our software works so he's beginning to understand the difference between a "software application" and a "software toolkit". I'm glad he's figured that out-- that's usually half of my battle with purchasing people thinking that the company's employees, all over the world, are going to use this software. "Development/Data Center Software": nope, no secretaries involved there!!
Same ol', Same ol'
I had a marvelously productive day: I created three amendments/extensions/addendas in the morning and more of the same in the afternoon. A busy and productive day, indeed! As I was preparing to leave, an inside sales rep brought over a document that had been modified by a customer. Fortunately, it had been modified in its previous format, not its final format so, while it looked like I was accepting the changes, I was in fact, not having to deal with them because they were already added or removed from the current format of the document. The customer will think I caved on a lot of stuff but, what they saw as "wrong" for us to ask of them in the agreement, we also saw as wrong and had already modified the format to remove those same things. Pretty cool, really . . . makes me look good though-- I'm sooo agreeable, don'tcha know? [Brandie, the sales admin from Canada, just choked on something-- I'm sure I heard it as she read that sentence! ;>) ]
The One Jobber
Brian-- you know the one, that guy that only has one job these days . . . how unusual-- has taken the night off to go to the SVLUG meeting. Not perfect planning on my part, don'tcha know. Here I am: I'm home alone for a couple of hours and, unfortunately, I have no secret wrapping to do cuz I had to leave that at the office. Tomorrow, I'll bring a roll of wrapping paper into the office so that I can wrap his gift there before I bring it home. This gift doesn't have a way of hiding until I get a chance to wrap it-- I seldom get any time alone in the apartment. I've left it at work for the time being and, when I remember to bring Christmas wrap with me, I'll wrap it and then bring it home.
Get Wells and Prayers and Happy Thoughts and Whatevers
Lots going out tonight:
-Our nephew, Matt, has been having problems with pleurisy; he needs to get rest and, for the first time in his young life, remember that he is mortal.
-Dan Bowman who has more than the usual treadmills ahead of him
-Last but certainly not least, my "Glow-In-The-Dark" cousin, Barb-- she is having her iodine/radiation treatment this week to kill all of those bad ju-ju cancer cells. Once this is over with and the Geiger counter stops clattering at her, she can go back to work and get on thyroid medication to help control her thyroid levels.
-Dan frequently talks about Kaycee, a young leukemia patient that he's come to know via the 'Net. From time-to-time, I read her site and, as with most of the people whose feedback I've heard, I am amazed at her inner strength, perseverance, courage, and determination (to name a few of her obvious characteristics). From the time that I first read her site, she's never been far from my thoughts, prayers and whatevers.
To all of you: take care, get well, be strong!
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Oh, well . . . I have nothing to do for a couple of hours so, if you'll excuse me, gentle readers, I'm going to go enjoy it.
Have a nice evening!
Tuesday, December 5, 2000Good News/Bad News
I've finally heard from both customers. The first, the government agency, called me this morning to tell me that she had reviewed my amendment document, made her comments and was forwarding the whole
mess-- err, file-- to her attorneys for review. We're going to be doing a few things to try to expedite matters but it appears that its going to close before the end of the year-- YEAH!!!!The second customer, Mr. 46-Point Email is going to be told by the end user tomorrow that the document is going to change (we're going to use a volume purchase agreement, basing the discount on the quantity of licenses purchased, instead of a software license) and Mr. 46-Point Email is going to be instructed by the end user to accept that document. He isn't going to be happy! Oh, well . . .
Every time I turn around, someone is asking "Who handles the Southeast?" and I sheepishly raise my hand wondering what it is going to bring this time! It is REALLY busy!! Lots of little documents to write-- amendments and addendums. There are big dollars associated with the bits of paper but its like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle when I have to name them all! Yet and still, its busy and I like it that way so believe me, I'm not complaining!!
Positive Feedback
I've gotten some positive feedback from my Christmas Page-- feel free to drop by and browse a bit. I fixed the few typos that were there (I hate that!) and adjusted a bit of the spacing.
Connectivity-- what's that?
I have no idea what's going on but apparently, I'm not getting all of my mail at marcia@dutchgirl.net-- I don't like that, needless to say. The good news on that is that Brian's a bit more free to work on fixing the email problem but, in the meantime, mlbilbrey@yahoo.com would be the safest email contact for me. Sorry for the inconvenience-- hopefully, its only a temporary problem.
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The final night of "Dune" is tonight-- it is being done slightly differently from the movie so it is interesting. Brian's enjoying it a lot-- tonight he won't have to jump up on commercials to work on the book's appendix-- he may not know how to act!!
Have a nice evening!
Monday, December 4, 2000
My beautiful niece, Faye Lynn, is celebrating her birthday today!! Her parents just gave her a brand new computer for Christmas, a little early this year-- guess what her first bookmark was?!?!?!? Of course, her aunt!!! Yes, and then she bookmarked my website. Oh, well, I still love her-- a bunch!!!
Not a Peep
Ya know, after all that wrangling on Friday to write a 46-point email and talk with people about contracts, I didn't hear a peep out of either of those parties today? I was terribly surprised at that, too! I contacted the one sales rep and all he said was that the purchase was going forward. He needs to be a little more definitive than that but, he's working on it. We need to make sure that the purchasing agent is going to look at either the changes or our document before we let them write any contingency clauses on the purchase order. It could get very tricky from here on out-- I don't like when people won't either email or call to discuss things. I hate making it up as I go along!!
Too Much Christmas!!
Okay, so I went a little overboard . . . in order to fit all of the pictures in that Brian took of the tree and stuff, I ended up doing a separate page for the pictures. I know that I asked the other Netwidows to put up pictures of their finished Christmas trees but I don't expect them to do a separate page for it. I just started writing some of the stuff for the pictures and it sorta blossomed and grew and took off on me. What can I say??
Enjoy the pictures and, if you have any questions about an ornament, i.e., what is it?, how did you make it?, where did you get it?, feel free to send me an email. I love talking about my ornaments, almost as much as buying them when we travel and making them!!
Stockings!!
I found Christmas stockings tonight!! I went shopping after work and, besides finishing our Christmas shopping, I found stockings for us to hang by our fireplace. I bought red velveteen stockings that have an applique of "Santa's Workshop" on it. Brian's has the obvious: a "Santa's Playland" (get serious about Christmas??? HAH!!!) applique with a Penguin on it!! Y'know how when you shop and something just jumps out at you to go home with you when it is something that is really, really good and perfect and The Thing that you were looking for? Well, needless to say, that Penguin was screaming, waving its arms, and generally begging to come home with me!! ;>)
Connectivity?
Our connectivity is not good-- it hasn't been all day. As I've been writing this post and the Christmas page, it has been coming and going. If you need to write to me, feel free to use my Yahoo! address: mlbilbrey@yahoo.com.
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We'll be watching Part II of "Dune" tonight-- Brian loves the books and the original movie, which we have on tape, too. This is a 3-part mini-series on the Sci-Fi Channel that, so far, appears to be a remake of the movie. We'll see how it progresses from here. I've never read the books so I am a kinda novice at this-- Brian's the expert.
Have a good evening and, if we're lucky, I'll catch you tomorrow night!!
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