Quote of The Day: Blaine Pascal

"The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine
days within me; my prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter."

I'm just posting this to be contrary. I'm actually enjoying the weather quite a bit and not wearing my coat because I hate coats juts as much as Huck Finn hated shoes.

I was out last evening enjoying the weather at Green Lake when I saw procession of people marching around the lake holding candles. Even though they had very focused purposeful looks on their faces, I couldn't resist asking what was going on so I stepped in front of an older woman who didn't look like was strong enough to take me and said, "I hate to interrupt but can you tell me what's going on?"

"It's the ten year anniversary of Columbine."

"Oh."

"We're from Ceasefire Washington. We say no more killing," she said and pumped her fist in the air.

"Well "no killing" is a controversial stance but I think we can get behind that one anyway." She just looked at me awkwardly and walked away. Either some people don't do irony or I'm just not very funny. I have to suspect the former or my whole worldview would crumble.

So I gave the first round of my work presentation yesterday. It went well despite not having made a PowerPoint presentation in a few years. (I really don't like them. I find them visually distracting to the presenter.) My director only had three critiques. I didn't look at him enough, I didn't use the authorized template, and it came off as too negative. The lack of eye-contact happened because I was too busy staring at that damn PowerPoint. I have repented of being an individual and put it on the authorized template so it now looks like everyone else's. He said it had a negative vibe because I started out with a problem and presented a solution instead of saying good things, problemish things, and then solutiony thingys. He said it made him feel bad. (I resisted the urge to say it sounds like a personal issue. I wish all it took was the mere re-ordering of slides to make me feel happy). Maybe there's a life lesson in there somewhere about having more positives than negatives. I kid but his comments were very helpful.

We'll see how it goes Friday in front of the VP. I have been warned that if I bore him he will take out his phone and start playing with it. Oh, I know that feeling. Maybe we can bond over the fact that we both find people so uninteresting.

The funniest part was that last night somebody texted me and asked why I got home so late. I was going to text back, "I'm late because I was doing a sales presentation." Although right before I pushed send, I noticed I had written, "I'm late because I was doing a salesman."