2001-05-02 - 10:44 p.m.

Black Rose

Don't people watch Science Fiction anymore? Don't they know that when you give somebody a Black Rose, that you have to kill them?

*snicker*

OK, maybe not. In fact, Redwood's black roses are incredible. The are so dark. I'm secretly planning on driving in a few weeks and collecting one from his garden. Mmmm, on second thought, then he would kill me.

Grover's Birthday

Grover managed to make it around the sun once more. Yeah! Actually she organized a nice get together last night to celebrate her birthday. She, Latex, Redwood, myself, and some of her fellow students met at the Davis Indian resteraunt. We had so much food. I've not eaten that well in a very long time.

Grover's student friends are more than cool. They rock. They all had interesting stories and listened to whatever Redwood or myself offered about ourselves. I think it says something about somebody when she has so many wonderful friends.

In the past Grover has invited me to hang out with her and what I believe is this group. I was a bit shy about doing it, but if I get an invite in the future, I know I can hang with these people and not feel freakish.

Grover's Surprise

I was surprised when Grover casually mentioned that she would have to complete her MS Thesis by Aug. 17, 2001. 2001? 2001??!! 2001!

Having done my own Thesis I know just how insane that is. I guess that means I won't see her as much due to studying. :(

The big shock was the reason. She didn't exactly say it, but I think she may have been accepted to UC Berkeley for her Ph.D. A large part of me is extremely happy for her. But I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't miss her. It was nice knowing she would be in Davis, so naturally I'm a bit sad too.

Chicago Bound

Tomorrow I work for a short time before running to the airport and flying to Chicago. I'm not exactly looking forward to the trip, because blue hair and all will not go over well with my conservative family. I'm going for my grandmother and father. This is important to them both, so I've rented a car while I'm there and I have a nice book to curl up to if necessary.

In fact, I'm just now starting the Return of the King. Yup, I've read the other books, but never the last one. I was actually saving it for a bad time in my life.

Thankfully I'm not there, but I wanted some fun reading. Since I list Tolkein as a favorite, I figured I should at least read the last book from the Lord of the Rings.

Little Things Matter

While reading Springs diary on Sunday I noticed just how hurt, confused, and sincere she is. I've always seen this in her, and it is a large part of the reason I fell in love with her, but I could see how she wanted to talk with me, but also wanted to respect my wishes. I ended up calling her late Sunday night and we had a great talk.

It actually made me feel much better. Oh, I want to talk more, but right now I want to take baby steps.

But my timing could not have been better. I caught her right when she was making a care package for me. It arrived in the mail today.

I've always liked creative things, especially personal items or sentimental items. Her package included many of those. Actually I'm not going to share what I got, because she knows what she sent me and I know. It will be our little seceret. But know this, I think it was one of the sweetest gestures imaginable. I loved the care package!

I need to email her before I go on my trip too! She is being very supportive of my trip to Chicago. It helps that her family is from near there as well.

Some People Should Be Shot

In contrast to the kindness she has shown me, Shortround is really bothering me. On my ride home today he started asking me about ANNs, other statistical models, and how to predict stage and salinity. We had a large meeting at work today and I was pissed at him for bascially jacking off for a month and a half while Particle and I worked our butts off. He even had the nerve to tell me and Particle that most of the time instead of working or studying for the P.E. that he was sleeping.

What a fucking idiot! He thinks he is god's gift to the human race, and that other engineers will do his work. Fuck that.

He does it by confusing us. His English is already bad, but he refuses to let other people talk. During the meeting he would say incorrect things, and I would try to correct him. He'd keep talking, so I'd just sit there pissed off looking. Then when he was finished, I'd tell everybody what really was the case.

I swear, next meeting I'll just write every gibberish fact he says, and then point by point when it is my turn correct him. I won't even give him a warning that I'm going to dissect his work.

One of the projects he is talking about working on soon he made it sound like it would take him weeks to do. B.S. And I called him on it. Basically he makes things way complicated and tries to impress people by how hard things are.

For another project he need river stage and salinity estimates. It is a project that I'm working on with Dr. Stage. Two senior engineers asked Shortround why he was doing work that was assigned to Dr. Stage and myself. Instead of answering their question, he blamed Dr. Stage for taking too long.

Then several other senior engineers interrupted him and reminded Shortround that Dr. Stage and I both have been moved to higher priority projects and that he really shouldn't duplicate our work. Basically he looked like an idiot today.

But what pisses me off is that he would sit there and argue, but never listen. On the bus he still wanted to pick my brain about stage and salinity, and then claimed that they both depended on the operation of barriers in the rivers. That just isn't the way our models work, and he should know that.

When I explained that to him (at the cost of 10 minutes) he said he wasn't talking about them being important for stage or salinity, but for general hydrodynamics.

What the fuck! Of course they are, but we weren't talking about that. He is a fucking idiot who refuses to ever be caught making a mistake, and when he is, he pretends he was talking about something else.

He just hit the number one slot on my shit list today. What am I going to do about it? Well, I just ranted here, and it does make me feel better. Second, next time he asks for help I sit and ask him to write his question down. I'll be polite about it, but if he has to write it, that will require effort. Maybe he'll go back to sleeping on the job. That at least keeps him away from my projects.

To think, California tax papers are being this dork around $52k a year to sleep and harass other engineers.

-=-

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