I was in another exciting business meeting today. I shouldn’t complain, I don’t have nearly as many meetings as some of my coworkers. In any case, it was a conference call, with a handful of us in the room and another handful inside the speaker phone. I was doing my normal thing, doodling. So was one of my coworkers. Near the end of the meeting a non-doodling coworker pointed to the doodlers paper and made a smirky face, then pointed to his own notebook, full of notes, and nodded disapprovingly.

So, what does all this mean? If found two useful links:

CareerJournal: From Doodling to Daydreaming: An Office-Meeting Survival Guide

In fact, meetings have become so tainted that they now go by a host of other names. They’re dubbed briefings (meetings that last longer than intended), seminars (expensive meetings with handouts), presentations (meetings preceded and followed by many other meetings), videoconferences (meetings with technical difficulties) and conference calls (meetings with eye-rolling).

Associated Content: The Secret Language of Doodles

Many people who doodle may seem like they’re not paying attention to what’s going on around them. Actually, they’re very focused, but not on the doodling—they *are* paying attention, and the doodling is helping them do that. They may not even realize they’re doodling until someone points it out to them.

[ De-motivational poster from Despair, Inc. ]

My parents came up for the weekend, so on Saturday we went to the New England Aquarium in Boston. It was super-crowded. Still very amazing to see the huge tank and all the fishies and non-fish watery type thingies.

What wasn’t so amazing was the nice little boy that sneezed on my wife and daughter. Of course, you can’t exactly determine that it was his fault, but both my wife and daughter managed to catch strep throat again (this is the third time in three months for my wife).

My daughter was laid up in bed most of the day yesterday, and seems to be doing fine today. She got a quick lab test done, and she definitely has it. Of course, if the lab and CVS could actually get their act together we might actually be able to get her prescription.

Our doctors as usual gave my wife the run around. Three people had to see her and then a lab test in order to verify she had it. My wife is an expert in strep throat now, I think she knows more about it than all the nurses and doctors and lab techs combined! She was able to get her prescription on the spot, so she has already had her first dose.

She also made an appointment with an ENT to get her tonsils evaluated. For some reason they don’t recommend getting them removed as an adult, but at this point my wife may be a Strep “carrier,” and without getting them removed she’ll continue to get it often.

Here’s some links:

• Cigna: Strep Throat (from our health insurance)
• Harvard University Gazette: Research finds benefits for adults who have tonsils removed

There are several clichés that I’ve heard in the office (or out of the office), and a few of them have “jumped the shark.” My friend turned me on to this new saying, so I’m going to use it until it is no longer out of the box.

And that is my first example, by saying or referencing, “think outside the box,” you, in fact, are not, thinking outside the box. In fact I would say that you are thinking very inside the box, and that you should probably either stick to talking about what comes “out of the box,” or leave the whole box concept alone.

And next is my favorite trilemma, “Quick, Cheap, Good: Pick two.” Which always seems to be true, but, alas, is getting old and overused.

And so, I’m also going to introduce some of my own quotes for use in popular culture. Some I know I was the first to say, and some I must have heard somewhere else.

• When asked about what you think of a particular thing, respond with: How do I describe this without using the word, “suck.”
• When describing something that is slightly good, say it, “doesn’t suck.” Or, “slightly less sucky.”
• Basically, to create a nice sarcastic comment, take a good word like fantastic, fabulous or wow, and mix it with, suck, crap or bite me. Examples: Wow that is a suck. Bite my crap. Crap crap. Sucky bite crap and suck. Sucktastic crapulosity, craptastic. Bite me.

Wow, I think I offended myself with this post.

Yesterday I had a bad coffee day. I didn’t get a chance to make my usual morning coffee at home, so I decided to make some at work. The only grind I had sitting around at work was an “espresso” grind. The packaging actually says it should work in all coffee makers, but, it is a very fine grind.

So, after loading up the coffee maker with 10 cups worth of grind and water (figured I’d share), I let it run. I let everyone know that the coffee was brewing, and then after 30 mins went back to check on it. It was everywhere. Everywhere except in the coffee pot. It appears as though the grind was not letting the water through fast enough, so it overflowed over the basket - getting all over the outside of the pot, the coffee maker, the counter, the cabinets and the floor. Now keep in mind, I still haven’t had any coffee - so cleaning this up was especially effortfull.

Meh.

In the afternoon I was reminded that I had a secret stash of coarse grind for my french press. I brewed that and, although it didn’t result in a disaster, didn’t result in very good coffee.

Brent brought in a nice baggie of starbucks today. He threw it at me, and thankfully the ziplock held. We’ll have to save it for a rainy day (or Friday), as I brewed some pumpkin spice at home and brought it in.

I don’t think that grass was meant to be mown, or leaves were meant to be raked. What kind of evolution would have brought this on us? I guess it’s our own fault, if we hadn’t chopped down the trees in the first place then there wouldn’t be the grass, and the leaves would be all happy sitting on the ground next to the trees.

I guess what I’m trying to say, is that after 3.5 hours this afternoon, I’m still not done. I got tired, but I really had to stop working because it was dark out. I was able to take care of the leaves and mow the front and side yards, and managed to take care of most of the leaves in the backyard. I still have to collect two more piles, and then mow. I used my blower/vac/mulcher to put all the leaves in piles, then vacuumulch them directly into a garbage bag. I started at 2:30 and finished at 6.