Hey Jyri, Pass the Reindeer ...

It's been waaaaay too long since my last work-related travel woes blog. I used to write it mostly because I loathed Shit Louis and my utterly insane, bipolar boss. But I thought - "what the hell, I have a 16 travel day to Finland, there has to be something interesting to write about." Seriously, this blog has been shit recently so perhaps a return to a favorite subject matter (i.e., my mystery on a plane) will spark people's interest.

* My Sunday has been a total mess and I end up going straight to the gate and arriving about 5 minutes before my plane starts boarding. No time to grab food but I'm sure that there will be a hearty meal on the plane, right? Sigh ... I know that's unlikely but I can dream, can't I?

* The plane is packed and appears to be comprised mostly of young female exchange students and septuagenarians. Guess who I have the pleasure of sitting next to? That's right, a European Ernest Borgnine in drag.

* The stewardess is wearing a necklace that says "Jazzercise" on it. Really? Is that the current exercise fad in Europe? What, no "Tai Bo" bracelet? Now I would totally understand if she were 13 or mentally diminished or from the outskirts of the Ukraine. But she's American. I'm guessing she's from Houston instead. I'm also guessing she has 13 cats and was too embarrassed to wear wrist charm with the names of all 13 cats. I'm going to go out on a limb here guess that the list of names include Boots, Smokey, Tyrone, and Mr. Gibbs.

* One of the oldsters sitting in front of me keeps trying to reclined her chair so she can lie horizontally. Sorry Madge, but you'll need to spend a few grand more in order to get those fancy reclining seats in business class. So until then, please stop bouncing back and forth like a goddamned hobby horse.

* I totally forgot that I signed up for special lowest meals when I registered. Good news - I managed to avoid the nasty roast beef and manicotti dinners, Bad news - I got a dinner subsisting of 1 oz of chicken, some side of white beans, carrots and tomatoes, and a began cookie. Oh yeah, and a salad consisting of lettuce and a lemon. Seriously, I think I ate 200 calories for dinner.

* I am 6 hours in to my 10 hour flight and I can't sleep. Not good. I start watching some horrible movie starring Helen Hunt and Matthew Broderick where she gets pregnant - I think it's called "A Womb With A View" - and it's horrible. I seriously ponder plucking my eyes out.

* The woman sitting next to me has sneezed not less than 20 times. Cue the airborne virus in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

* And the insomnia continues. I somehow manage to stay awake for my entire 10:00-ish hour flight and have arrived at the Frankfurt airport where it's 7:30 a.m. It feels like someone poured Tabasco salt in my eyes. I sleep for another hour or so on the second leg of my flight and make it to Helsinki in one piece. Despite getting about 4 hours of sleep, I don't feel like total hell. The week should be a blur of work, travel and strange foods, but I will try to update this blog before I return next week.

Kiitos!

Holy Shit, A New Post!

Since it's been at least a week since my last post (I don't even want to look at the date), it must mean that it's time for the obligatory post to let people know that I am still alive and well, despite my advanced age and insane amount of travel the past two weeks. I've been derelict in my writing duties, with most of my otherwise free time lost to my new job which requires me to focus during the day time (as well as drive to every day). The carefree days of working from home and focusing more on my Wii bowling score than my personal grooming are a thing of the past, boys and girls. Goodbye midday grilled cheese sandwiches and work wardrobe consisting of shorts and t-shirts. Hello collared shirts and non-Nike shoe apparel. Oh well. On the plus side, they have a fully stocked fridge, ample caffeine and free working lunches twice a week.

So far, I *really* like my job. I won't say "love," because that special word is reserved for truly special things, like unicorns and Scarlett Johansson. But I think that I'm going to really enjoy working here. The people are very nice and professional, and extremely smart. To the point where I wonder if I am the dumbest person working for the company. I'm not insecure by nature, but I sometimes wonder how I lucked out and got this job. It's insanely better than my last job. I'm learning new things each day and am actually using my brain for the first time in years it seems. So far, so good.

[ Editor's note - for the eight people that regularly read this blog, please make sure to bookmark today's entry for future reference when David James posts his umpteenth comment about how crazy his company is and how longs for a new job. We're putting the over/under at 20 months. ]

More Travel Funnery

The more things change, the more things stay the same.

So after I posted yesterday, I hopped on a plane from Vienna (which for the life of me, I will always associate with Virginia rather than Austria) to Helsinki for the last leg of travel. After ingesting some sort of mystery sandwich, I quickly passed out to make up for my profound lack sleeplessness. After about 40 minutes of blissful napping, I was awakened by some sort of commotion in the plane. I awake sluggishly and look to my right to find that the woman sitting across the aisle from me is throwing up. Flight attendants are trying to help the bulimic woman as she empties her stomach, while passengers looked upon the situation with concern.

Was I concerned? No, unless by concern you mean "horrified and annoyed."

Hey honey, would it have killed you to get out of your seat and take care of your business in the bathroom, which was located DIRECTLY BEHIND your seat? Seriously, we're talking about 3 feet. It's not like someone asked you to land the fucking plane, simply exit your seat and scurry right behind you so we don't all have to see and smell the contents of your stomach?

Jesus Christ, why does this shit always happen to me?

The Birthday Man Cometh ....

It finally happened.

No, not death by travel-induced exhaustion.

I turned 40 today. I spent my traditional birthday weekend in New York with good friends. It was a great time, highlighted by my performing karaoke with a live band at 2:00 a.m. in a New York bar. Suffice it to say, it wasn't my best performance (in fact, I was terrible), but it was a lot of fun.

But that was this past weekend and today (Monday) is my actual birthday. So how did I celebrate my actual birthday? Well so far, I spent it on a plane sitting next to a very nice, elderly Austrian man on a flight from New York to Vienna (on my way back to Helsinki) watching "The Hitman" over and over, unable to fall asleep. Meanwhile, my new friend who looked at "Enchanted" more than once. I say "looked at" instead of "watched" because he never put on his headphones. He simply stared at the screen. Old people are funny like that.

I've been bracing myself for this day for a while. I'm not sure what I expected would happen -- would gray hair immediately sprout out of my head? Would liver spots appear overnight? Would I start to walk hunched over with a limp?

In actuality, I feel and look the same as I did yesterday. But it's somehow anti-climactic. My friends know that I hate being the center of attention, but for once I'd like to have some sort of party. I mean, I'm fucking 40 now. By all reasonable estimates, my life is half over. I secretly would really like a big dinner with friends on my actual birthday. Instead, today I'll soon be back in Helsinki, the land of the vowels. I'll probably have dinner with my new boss (who I really like a lot), who is also in town this week. It's not quite the birthday bash I dreamed of, but it's better than eating alone again in a restaurant filled with people named Teppo and Paivi.

I'm still wildly lucky to have great family and friends, so I'll stop my complaining and go back to trying to quench my endless thirst for caffeine. Who needs sleep when you can drink coffee instead?

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Here it is boys and girls, my last work trip to St. Louis. Actually, I can say my last trip to Missouri ever because, having seen there multiple times, there's no way I would ever voluntarily go back and visit. I would charitably describe the state as an armpit. But what does St. Louis have to do with Torcher the lion dog? I have no idea. But he looks as bewildered as I will look happy when I get on the return flight to California on Tuesday. Fifteen days to resignation day.

Yesterday was Saturday. And Saturday is a rugby day. And with rugby days, bring injuries. The injury d'jour is my eye, which I managed to smash onto some guy's knee while I was kneeling on the ground. Silly me. The eye is swollen but the double vision has subsided. Still, I imagine that my eye is in way better shape than his knee. Should be fun times when the cabin pressure makes my eye swell up like a balloon. Can't wait.

Tales of my St. Louis follies to follow...

Happy Belated Thanksgiving

First and foremost, Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I’ve been at Disneyland for the past several days have been meaning to post, but I’ve been too busy and wiped out to post. I will say that people watching at Disneyland is almost as much fun as the park itself. There is no way to capture

Number of days spent in Anaheim - 3.75 days (Sunday night through Wednesday night)
Number of combined hours at the park - approximately 40.
Number of combined hours of sleep - approximately 25.
Number of calories consumed over the 3+ days - approximately 23,000.
Number of crying kids - 1,008.
Number of hot guys with ugly wives - 2.
Number of ugly guys with hot wives - easily over 100. (Someone help me understand this phenomenon)
Number of children presumably conceived after being slipped a roofie - see answer immediately preceding above.
Number of celebrities spotted - 2 (Seal and Heidi Klum)
Number of obvious strippers spotted - 2.
Number of guys clearly on steroids spotted - lost count.
Number of frosted mullets spotted - 1 (this mullet spotting is in the running for highlight of the trip).
Number of fake boobs spotted - uhh, I didn’t notice.
Number of time I rode on Pirates of the Caribbean - 3.
Number of times we rode “Autopia” (i.e., the go-cart attraction where kids get to actually drive the car) - 7.
Total number of churros consumed by the family - 6.
Total number of tacos consumed by me - also 6.
Most money spent on a single serving of plain coffee - $5 (includes commemorative plastic mug!).
Cost to rent an “electronic convenience vehicle” (i.e., driving device which helps the immobile get around the park) - $55.
Number of people spotted riding said “electronic convenience vehicle” - 50 (conservative estimate).
Number of annoying/harassing/demeaning email I got from my boss on Monday - I stopped counting at 12.
Number of my boss’ annoying/harassing/demeaning email to which I responded - 0.
Number of smile and happy memories - infinity*.

* Note: my editor made me insert that last item, insisting that there’s no way this blog goes IPO if I don’t clean it up and stop using terms such as “fuckwit” and “assmunch.”

Other random thoughts and observations ….

* While on the 4th or 5th go-cart ride, I noticed that the person in the car next t me was a middle-aged adult. Without a child with them. As in, he was driving the go-cart by himself. I was like “What the fuck are you doing? Do you not get enough time behind the wheel of an actual car as it is?” Jesus Christ, what is wrong with people?

* Visual highlight of the trip -- is it: (a) the hot woman in the tight t-shirt who just got drenched on the Splash Mountain ride, or (b) the middle-aged woman driving her electronic assistance vehicle wildly who crashed into a curb and almost lurched over the handlebars? I gotta go with the latter. That shit was fucking hi-larious. Top notch stuff.

* Flying on Thanksgiving is awesome. I flew out on Thursday around noon and it was fantastic. There are no lines, people are laid back and nice, and it is acceptable to drink early because it’s a holiday. Plus, flying out of Orange County/Santa Ana Airport is awesome.

(Side note: I refuse to call OC/SA Airport by its current name, “John Wayne Airport.” Similarly, I refuse to call “National Airport” in D.C. by its current name, “Ronald Reagan.” Fucking annoying.).

Shit Louis, In a Nutshell

Boys and girls … David James is exhausted right now. I am flying back from Shit Louis, Missouri as I write this and I can barely keep my eyes open. One day after returning from Maggotfest, I had to head to the Loo’ for an all-day, technology implementation strategy session (kill me please).

The technology meeting was an utter waste of time. I totally could have dialed in to that cluster fuck call. I pretty much laid it out for them that I was not going to be traveling to St. Louis every other week like I did for a short while in 2006 (ZES got the worst of that project, though -- my apologies my man).

In order to get through Wednesday’s meetings, I had to ingest an inordinate amount of caffeine. And by inordinate, I mean “shitload.” At last count, I was up to 5 cups of coffee and 6 diet Cokes. And still, I’m nodding off in the afternoon. I wonder if it had anything to do with the subject matter -- implementation of some new “turnkey” “back office solution.” Look folks, I’m not making up these terms and I don’t personally use them, I’m just parroting them back because they were permanently etched into my memory. In fact, I kept track of the number of times “solution” and “customization” were used -- 141 times. Conversely, the term “Scarlett Johansson” wasn’t uttered a single time.

After looking at slides containing terms such as “Strategies Align with Corporate Vision,” “Business Blueprint,” and “Go Live and Support,” I was subjected to a stilted dinner with my boss and some other suffering colleagues. It mercifully ended around 8:30, after which point I was able to retire to the hotel bar to drink more with the aforementioned tortured co-workers.

Thursday included yet another 3+ hour meeting with my boss. Fuck me, why couldn’t I have drown on that whitewater rafting trip? I am pretty confident that I tortured animals in a past lifetime to deserve my current work karma.

But then, it was over. It was 3:00 and time to head to Lambert Airport. Not surprisingly, I was excited to leave Thursday but of course I had to endure the inevitable flying annoyances before I could make it home:

* I am sitting next to some over-tanned, wrinkle-saurus who keeps borrowing my magazines to read. Evidently she didn’t realize that she would be stuck on an airplane for 4+ hours with nothing to do. Fuck, what’s wrong with “Sky Mall” magazine?

* I made the mistake of using the bathroom after a guy in red shorts who ~ destroyed ~ the lavatory. Given all the chemicals and masking agents, it’s pretty fucking hard to further raise the disgusting meter. But evidently the “Little Red Crapper That Could” found a way. I’m blaming it on the pre-flight beef tacos and coffee. Well done, my man.

* I’ve experienced on-and-off turbulence for twenty minutes. I know I've mentioned this before, but there must be some travel route that doesn’t fly through the eye of whatever tornado which perches itself over the Colorado mountain range.

* Some old-ish dude just walking down the aisle just grinded my arm and shoulder with his crotch. I’m not talking about the “accidental-glance-of-my-ass-or-thigh-against-your-shoulder.” I’m talking full on “hey-birthday-boy-you-get-to-judge-the-lapdance-contest-at-Lucky-Cheng’s-restaurant-full-on-grind.” The guy just left me simpering here in my seat like Jodie Foster in "The Accused." God, I feel so dirty.

And so it went. I’m headed home to sleep … and then sleep some more. Oh, and I just signed up to play another rugby game this Saturday against a team of experienced “old boys” (i.e., 35 and older), who are usually out of shape (hooray), but dirty as shit. Oh well, should be fun. Have a great weekend kiddos and I’ll work on posting some photos/more content.

Pass the Vicodin Please

I know I sound like a broken record, but again I have to apologize for the utter lack of posting on this site in recent weeks. First, it was the birthday weekend. The birthday debauchery weekend was followed by my rugby team’s second trip to Maggotfest in Missoula, MT (more to follow below). I returned from Missoula after midnight on Sunday night. After a one day respite, I’m on another plane which is headed towards St. Louis, MO (fuck yeah!!). Oh well, at least I get free coffee and frequent flyer miles.

Maggotfest this year was fun, but not outstanding. The rugby games overall were somewhat mixed. We arrived Thursday night and went straight to the pitch in Missoula to play a “friendly” game against the home team. We traveled about 10 hours that day to get there and we arrived at the pitch (a/k/a the field) about 10 minutes before we were supposed to play. I was expecting and hoping for the advertised “friendly” game since we were traveling with only 16 players (you need 15 to play rugby) of which only 4 of them were starters. We were all exhausted and some of us had been drinking on the 3+ hour drive from Spokane to Missoula, so I figured that it was going to be ugly.

And I was correct. The Maggots absolutely rolled us. It was the most lopsided rugby loss that I had ever participated in. I scored our only try (worth 5 points), while the Maggots scored 100+ points. They stopped keeping track on the scoreboard. Most of our team quit midway in the game and the other team just kept running at us. I really don’t fault them for continuing to play, but they probably could have subbed out some of their key players earlier.

The lowlight of Thursday was followed by the Friday highlight of river rafting on the Lochsa River in Idaho. I had a total blast. The enjoyment was mitigated somewhat by the fellow rafter who insisted on yelling “Wooo hooo!!” EVERY time we hit a rapid and who complained that his feet were freezing. No shit, the river water is in the low 40s. Everyone’s cold and wet, stop being such a pussy.

Saturday’s games represented a better showing, although we had trouble scoring points all day. It was frustrating knowing we had a better team but playing down to the lower standards of the other teams. After the second game, I was counting down the minutes until my flight left on Sunday.

The highlight on Saturday was reuniting with some of my friends from Colorado to play against a ridiculously good team from Park City, UT. Like our game on Thursday, Fort Collins was playing against a team that was way out of its league. Unlike our team, though, Ft. Collins played with a lot of heart. They still lost, but they played hard and never quit. I got to “whore on” late in the second half, right before one of their players entirely faked me out and beat me to the corner to score a try. Good times. I did manage to tackle a U.S. Eagle rugby player (meaning a player who plays international level rugby for the United States) without breaking anything further on my body.

Sunday came and saw one final game, which most participants played hung-over to a 0-0 tie. Ahh, rugby at its highest. The highlight of Sunday was one of our large players (280+ lb.) who managed to play most of the game in a Winnie the Pooh costume. Classic. We headed out to the airport shortly after finishing our last game and bid a fond adieu to Montana.

Five games in four days + whitewater rafting - adequate sleep = a tired David James. I caught some sleep on the flight to St. Louis and managed to fall asleep again this evening in my hotel room but still feel exhausted. I’m putting the official over-under on my total caffeine intake at “a lot.” Keep your fingers crossed dear readers.

Pictures and more fun stuff to follow ....

"Liquor? I barely know her..."

Relax boys and girls ... I am still alive and well. I survived the big birthday weekend in NY and had a great time. DerekB has some photos and a more detailed write up will likely follow here, but here are a few things I recently learned on my trip:

* Despite what one may think at the time, there really is no urgent reason to get pizza at 2:30 in the morning. It was good, but entirely unnecessary. Overall, I estimate that I consumed enough food to feed a small family for one month.

* While they make a pretty good motorcycle, "Harley Davidson Beef Jerky" really doesn't live up to the same standard. While the toughened, leathery consistency lived up to the "Jerky" standard, I cannot be certain that it was actually made of beef. Unless they define "beef" broadly to include roadkill.

* People are insane. I saw a man in SFO changing his clothes in the middle of the bathroom next the sinks. He was wearing only underwear -- he was standing on the floor without any shoes or socks on. Disgusting. While I'm not a fan of the able bodied using the handicapped stall, I think everyone would agree to grant this guy an exception.

I will work on a more detailed write up of the trip, which will include a summary of our visit to a drag queen cabaret bar in NY where a dancer told me "you have nice blow job lips." (I still don't have a witty comeback to that one)

Hope everyone is doing well.

My Week in a Nutshell

A lot has transpired in the past week. Basically, my company shut down the satellite office in San Francisco where I was working. This sucked for a number of reasons:

1) I had to pack up my office and I am a total pack rat.
2) I don't have a home office at home. I don't have a desk, dedicated work area ... hell, I don't even have a home phone or Internet connection. To date, I've been rely on the charity of a neighbor that has graciously donated free WiFi to me. And by "graciously" I mean "unknowingly."
3) I *really* like working in the city and love the people, pace, restaurants, etc. that comes with it. Yeah, I could have done without the tofu hot dog experience, but all in all I far prefer working in an office as compared to home.

So I've worked from home all this week (rather than drive 80+ minutes to our Silicon Valley offices) and, so far, working from home has been a bit of a challenge. Sure the commute is a piece of cake, but I've not been properly set up to work from home. I'm sure that working from my couch hunched over my coffee table hasn't been fantastic for my back. It also doesn't help that I seem to eat every 20 minutes on cue.

Yesterday, I finally fixed the situation by setting up the office, assembling a desk, setting up the computer, printer, etc. and establishing home phone service. This has pretty much eaten my work productivity, but the set up is pretty nice now. It's really quiet here and I've moved my work area away from the kitchen. It's in a corner of one of my bedrooms which overlooks some trees:



If you look closely, you can see that I'm browsing some non-work related website. Ahh, some things never change.

Back to work, at least for today. I head to DC/NY next week for my annual birthday debauchery trip with DerekB, VMD and Cap'n Tears. Hope to post something soon.

Dear 8 lb, 6 oz Baby Jesus....

It’s the unholy hour of 6:15 a.m. on Tuesday morning, and I’m standing in a security line at SFO airport. There’s about 30 people ahead of me in line, so I’m not alone in my enjoyment. As we shuffle through, one of the TSA agents reminds travelers that there liquids permitted on the plane. Evidently, the tourists ahead of me in line didn’t receive a copy of the memo outlining the well known travel restrictions and were forced to throw away 3 bottles of Napa’s finest wine that they had attempted to smuggle on the plane. Ouch.

As I finally make my way through the line, the splint on my arm draws the attention of security and I am whisked away to a special area for closer scrutiny. Evidently there’s something in the Security Level Orange level that requires individuals wearing medical-related devices to submit to extra-special security screening. God knows what happens to travelers in wheelchairs once the security level is cranked up to Red, but I think it involves a full body cavity search.

Unfortunately for my readers, the rest of my travel to St. Louis was pretty non-descript. I had an entire row to myself, passed out about 10 minutes into the flight, and slept pretty much the entire way. No Shrek-like seatmates, no vomiting octogenarians, no flatulent teens.

What can I say about St. Louis itself? I’m basically out in the suburbs, right near the nation’s largest strip mall (congratulations, Missouri) and I can’t get over the combination of Red State, Wal-Mart, and the general level of unhealthiness. People smoke in bars and restaurants, the serving sizes are ridiculous, and everything appears to be deep fried, even when it doesn’t need to be. The best example of this was one of the dessert options at dinner one night -- deep fried cheesecake. Yup, that pretty much sums up St. Louis for me.

Fortunately for my audience, my flight back from St. Louis on Thursday contained its normal level of heightened annoyance. Within 5 minutes of taking off, I notice that the airplane smells vaguely of vomit. And by vaguely, I mean “strongly.” But it’s no big deal. I’m sure that I can hold my breath for 3.2 hours.

It turns out that the source of the smell was the woman in the row directly in front of me, who is eating some fragrant delicacy that I think is some combination of cod, vinegar and sweat socks. God bless her for sparing people in the airport by waiting until the flight had commenced before breaking into her dinner. What a thoughtful lass.

The voice over the intercom just announced that the in flight movie would be “Talladega Nights - The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.” Wow, things are starting to look up. The rest of the flight I alternate between “Ricky Bobby” and Season 2 episodes of “Arrested Development” and was perfectly content. It even helped me to temporarily forget the putrid stench which was the dinner of the woman in seat 14D. Good times.

David's Extremely Long Day

For some reason still unbeknownst to me, I was named one my company’s 100 key employees (company size is approximately 2,000). The prize? I got to fly to St. Louis as part of an all-day corporate strategy meeting.

Yes, I said meeting, singular. When originally told that I had to attend the meeting, my initial response was “uhhh, is there a dial in conference number?”

But no, my company felt that my presence was imperative, despite the fact that I would say nothing and gulp down caffeine at an alarming rate. Perhaps they wanted to be amused with reading my amusing anecdotes on this blog. Or perhaps they’re retarded. In either case, here it is in a nutshell.

7:30 a.m.: The day begins with breakfast at 7:30 (which is 5:30 a.m., my time) and my ass is dragging, having spent 10 hours traveling on what was supposed to be my day off and having gotten all of 5 1/2 hours sleep the night before. Surprisingly, alcohol did not play into this equation at all. Looking like hell, I join some colleagues of mine who work in D.C. and who have enjoyed the benefit of the time zone change. The exchange went something like this:

Colleague (chipperly): “Good morning! You look tired, what time did you get in last night?”
Me (under my breath): “Please die.”
Colleague: “Excuse me?”
Me: “About midnight. Doing great. Where’s the free coffee?”

And with that, I quickly gulp down a couple of cups of coffee and grab another cup for the meeting. “Operation: Feed Me Caffeine” has begun in earnest.

7:56: I poke my head inside the huge conference room and decide I probably better grab another cup of coffee. Just in case.

8:00: The meeting commences. Fortunately, the caffeine starts to kick which miraculously nudges me from “comatose” status to “barely functioning.”

8:07: The first slide of the presentation reads “Vision --> Mission --> Goals.” God, this is going to be a long day.

9:45: Time for our first break of the morning which is accompanied by a full on sprint towards the coffee machine.

10:23: The CEO urges us to improve our interaction with our customers: “Let’s touch our customers the first time as right as we can.” I start to giggle not-so-quietly as my boss glares at me.

10:45: Tuning out of the meeting (big surprise there, I know), I decide to take a little fashion inventory and assess the damage:

* There are not less than eight full-blown goatees in the crowd. I thought those were outlawed years ago?
* Surprisingly, there is not a single mullet in the crowd. For the first time today, I am proud of my company.
* Someone has worn a Tommy Bahama-style tropical shirt. I’m sorry, I didn’t get the memo stating that it would be “surf attire” at the meeting. What, no flip flops? Where’s the shark-tooth necklace?
* Another person expressed his individuality by wearing faded blue jeans, hiking boots and a huge foot long ponytail. I keep looking over in astonishment, wondering when the Fab 5 are going to bust in and take this guy out for a Queer Eye makeover.
* Someone is wearing brown and black topsiders with a black suit and a black striped shirt. And a goatee. Awesome.
* I spot what I initially think is someone wearing a black skull cap but upon closer inspection, it turns out to be his hair. He looks exactly like Jim Carrey from “Dumb & Dumber.” I can't post the photo I found on the Internet (yes, I know I need to get a camera phone), but you get the idea.

11:33: Easily the highlight of the meeting is when the CEO started playing the following videoclip:



Based upon the total silence, it’s obvious that few people in the audience even knew who Ali G was. Pathetic. Fuck it, I immediately start cracking up. My boss stares at me in disbelief like my hair is on fire. I don’t even care.

1:30: The second highlight of the day was meeting Yogi Berra who happened to be staying at the same hotel and who was in town for a charity golf tournament. I personally hate the Yankees, but thought it was pretty cool to meet a Hall of Fame baseball player.

2:45: As mentioned, the meeting was comprised of approximately 100 people. When glancing around at the bad clothes and the horrible facial hair, I noticed that the audience is really, really white. I mean, shockingly white. Of the 100 people, approximately 80 are white males. I counted about 15 white females or so, and 6 or 7 Asians (male and female combined). Of that number, it should be noted that 5 or 6 of them flew in from Singapore, leaving one token Asian male who actually works in St. Louis. There’s not one African American in the entire crowd. When responding to an anonymous question about the lack of company diversity, our new head of HR said, in what was surely the understatement of the day, “we could stand do improve in that area.”

My response to our new head of HR comment was “thanks for the statement in the damned obvious, you dumbshit.”

3:00 Good news - the final afternoon break has arrived. Bad news - the freshly brewed pot of coffee has not. Shit. There’s no more coffee, so I’m stuck drinking sugar-free sodas, which is all that’s left.

4:00: I am dying here. I didn’t keep officially tally, but unofficial estimates listed my caffeine intake as follows: 7 cups of coffee, 2 Cokes, and 2 iced teas. And despite all this, by my eyes are heavier than a “Celebrity Fit Club” participant. My brain is so lacking activity, that I half expected Missouri Republicans and outraged Christian groups to intervene before my employers pull the plug on my coma-like existence.

5:20: Mercifully the meeting finally ends. Now it’s off to cocktails, followed by dinner and finally a few hours of sleep before I head back to the airport to fly back to the Bay Area. This has been a colossal waste of time, but at least I got free coffee and frequent flyer miles out of it.

(Tomorrow - “Hey You Dumb Asshole, You Just Ran Over My Luggage!!!”)