no-vember

this is getting out of hand.

i sat down with a calendar yesterday and realized i'll be in the office 5 days in november.

that's one day the week of the 13th, three days thanksgiving week, and one day the last week of the month.

i'll be traveling the entire rest of the time. it's very safe to say that'll be a personal, single-month globetrotting record.

admittedly, a week of that will be vacation time. no complaints about that. and really, i'm not complaining about the business travel either. it's a busy time at spaceneedl sprockets*, and the company is doing well. which means everyone is running around like crazy.

compounding the hubbub, we're relocating to new offices the first week of the month. three separate facilities will be thrown together under one roof, for the first time ever. that'll create its own excitement, in many and unpredictable ways. it'll be a weird experiment in sociology as the new product development people learn to interact with non-engineers, the marketing team gets crossways with the finance folks, and the famously cranky IT types field frantic calls from everyone.

but that fun will have to begin without me, for the first little while, anyway. i'll be in boston and washington, d.c., and points beyond, attending trade shows and telesurgeries and sitting behind two-way mirrors drinking bad coffee and stress-eating m&ms.

okay, that sounded a little complain-y. which i don't mean to do. really.

fact is, this upcoming field work is important and necessary and part of a big "strategic growth" thing. yada yada. i'm glad my superiors feel my contribution is at least semi-essential in the big scheme of things. it's nice to be appreciated.

this doesn't exactly dovetail, i realize, with my previous epiphany about work, and my need to be closer to home. but these issues will continue to be kind of intractable for awhile.

as noted, november's booked...and it's historically impossible to get anything accomplished between the first of december and the first week of january. our national sales meeting is mid-january, so in effect we're jumping from late october to february. wheeee!

this is getting out of hand.

* not the company's real name. nor is it, strictly speaking, "my" company. i just work there.

now, where did i leave that heart...

oh, yes. now i remember.

mrs. spaceneedl and i lived in san francisco, back in the day. it was a good run, for awhile, if you overlook the incredibly high cost of apartment living. and the occasional earthquake.

one quake in particular, the 7.1 loma prieta event, stayed with us a good long while. we were living in the marina at the time, and if you recall anything about the news coverage, much attention was paid to fires and the buildings toppled into the streets.

most of that footage came from the marina district.

we were fortunate. our building, while heavily damaged, was still standing. after a few days, we were able to retrieve our belongings and move to firmer ground, in mill valley.

i had earthquake dreams for a long time thereafter. i'd wake up in the morning, certain we'd had another big one. never turned out to be the case, thankfully. then we moved to minnesota, where the tornado dreams started. fun with the subconscious mind.

once we left the bay area, we rarely looked back. we visited a couple times, briefly, for a wedding and a trip to monterey, but spent very little time in the city.

so my current trip here has been a fascinating experience. so much has changed, and if i had time to venture out to some old stomping grounds, i suspect i'd find that much remains the same.

yesterday would've been the perfect day to climb up to the marin headlands for a view of the bay and the golden gate bridge. it was a perfect day, sunny, warm, crystal clear. the kind we had too few of this year in seattle. so it would've been nice to sneak off and take advantage of it.

unfortunately, my schedule is slammed. i'll be wearing a path between the hotel and the moscone convention center, and not much else.

this afternoon, if the weather holds, i'll go for a run somewhere around here...maybe relive the glory days of my bay-to-breakers run of a few years ago.or, maybe something slightly less ambitious.

san francisco is a great city...and somehow i had lost touch with the reasons that's so. but all it takes is a brief walk through these streets to set things straight.

home will always be seattle, but in many ways my heart is still here...

see at last, see at last...

...thank god almighty, i can see at last.

i had lasik yesterday. today my vision is 20-20. it's a miracle.

of medical science.

there was no pain, very little discomfort. the procedure took less than 15 minutes. i went home and slept through the night, and when i woke up...there it was.

the world, in HD.

lines are crisper, colors are brighter. if i didn't know better, i'd say the world tried a new detergent.

as a result of my reconfigured lenses, i may need reading glasses. if so, i'll opt for something unsubtle. something from the elton john collection, just for the hell of it.

okay, maybe not quite that extravagant.

but something that celebrates my newfound vision.

let us close with a few thoughts on the subject from brother murphy..

I can see! I can see! I have...I have legs. I have... Oh shit, look at this. Legs! I can walk. Jesus, praise Jesus. I appreciate this. Oh, this is beautiful. I can't believe... Thank you. I don't know what to do it's...Look at me, this is too much.

What a happy day!