Monday, October 02, 2006

Monday Morning Mania

All of the members of my team are out of the office today. This means that the responsibilities of the entire department fall on my shoulders. In the first 80 minutes of the day today I dealt with a customer complain, and out of box failure, four purchase orders and someone needing additional information about preventive maintenance. I finally had enough time to run and grab a cup of coffee at 9:20 a.m. and to my delight one of my co-workers had brought in a box of donuts. Forget the oatmeal, I am having a donut.

As a kid I disliked Old-Fashioned donuts. As an adult I think that they are fabulous when dipped in coffee.

I had a pretty low-key weekend as I am still fighting this horrible head and chest cold. I canceled my plans on Friday night and crawled into bed early. Saturday afternoon and evening I attended an Oktoberfest party at the home of a friend. The beer was awesome (Harvest Moon Festbier), the brats were grilled and smoked to perfection, the scenery was exquisite complete with purple mountains majesty and before I knew it 6 hours had gone by. Everyone had planned to camp out so that they didn’t have to drive but I didn’t think I was up for sleeping outdoors with my cold, so we opted to head back to Seattle. Sunday I was a complete bum and really tried to knock the cold with 2 naps sandwiched between 2 really good nights of sleep and it helped. A few more days and I think that I will be back to normal.

The other nice thing about hanging out at home this weekend was that I finally had a chance to listen and absorb some new music. On September 12th two of my favorite bands introduced new albums. I purchased both but had not really had a chance to listen to them. I had heard several of the new songs from the Carbon Leaf album (Love, Loss, Hope, Repeat) when I saw them in concert in August. The album is complete with clever lyrics and catchy tunes. I don’t love it like their previous album Indian Summer yet, but I think it has the potential. The other album is the new one from the Barenaked Ladies titled Barenaked Ladies are Me which was exactly what I expected it to be. I had heard a few of the songs on the radio and the album lives up to the hype for sure.

The other album that I am really enjoying right now is the debut album from New London Fire. I heard the song “We Don’t Bleed” on a podcast while at the gym a couple of weeks ago. I loved the song. It was like a flashback to my senior year in high school because their sound reminds me of many of the bands that I loved back then. They are touring right now.

The nice thing about being alone in the department today is that I get to listen to my music! So I am enjoying a new mix I created yesterday with songs from the above mentioned along with favorites from Snow Patrol, Death Cab for Cutie, Eastmountainsouth, John Mayer, KT Tunstall and of course, Vienna Teng.

Speaking of Vienna Teng, one of my friends attended the Madeline Peyroux concert at The Moore Theatre on Friday night. Vienna Teng opened for her and I told my friend not to miss the opening act. We spoke this morning and not surprisingly Vienna put on an amazing show and has won another fan!

I guess that is enough random manic information for this coffee break. Have a good day!

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