Oh, the lovely Company party...

I spent most of yesterday hungover. Not from alcohol, but from diphenhydramine, the active ingredient in most over-the-counter sleeping aids, like Nytol™ or Sominex™. I took a full dose of the Tylenol™ brand "Simply Sleep", and I paid the consequences. At least I got a full night's sleep Tuesday night; I might have felt like crud Wednesday, but it was a fully rested crud, better than the "I haven't gotten a decent night's rest in four days" crud I was feeling earlier.

Yesterday Omaha and I were goingto go to my company's holiday party at the Experience Music Project, to which my company is a "Patron" supporter, which started at six. The plan was, tygereclipse would be home so she could watch Kouryou-chan, Omaha would bus up here around 4:30 to attend a short business meeting of her own, then head over to the EMP to meet me. At 4:50 I get a call from one of her business partners. "Uh, I called Omaha to see where she was, and when she answered the phone she sounded kinda weird. Then another voice came on the phone, her name was Kim, and they were in an ambulance headed to Highline."

Sigh.

I called Omaha's number and got Omaha. She was lucid, but she couldn't use the phone in the emergency room. I packed up my gear and headed down to get her. She was fine, dressed in a hospital gown with a blood shunt in her elbow. It was cold in there. The doctor was nice enough, but the nurse had no sense of humor. Omaha was discharged within half an hour, we headed home to pick up Omaha's meds as the doctor recommended, and then she insisted we got to the party.

I've never been to the EMP, so it was a new experience. It was nice to get in on the company dime. I don't know that I would have spent $12.50 myself just to learn that Brittney Spears' costume had very little bust, or that 50 Cent can actually sing despite his accent, or that Bing Crosby was born in the Pacific Northwest. On the other hand, it was interesting to see Queensryche in their big-hair phase, and the Dylan and Hendrix exhibits were fascinating.

And, y'know, for a company with barely a hundred employees, we have three in-house bands, none of which are terrible. The first one, from our QA group, did late 60's, early 70's stuff with aplomb and skill; the second, from hardware development, was 80's covers done rather raw, and then there's software dev, which does 90's heavy metal. Loudly. All in all, very competent. The engineer put the bass player up too high, though.

Omaha and I went home early. My ears couldn't take the volume; I usually bring ear plugs to concerts and always have. After all, they're built with mid-70's technology and their failure mode is painful and went straight to bed.

Grr... Withdrawl...

Bleah. I spent all day at work, swapping around hard-drives in both cold and hot swap modes, trying to make them fail. They didn't. I still can't tell if that means they're working right or I'm not testing them right.

Omaha and I are both sick now, peering at each other bleary-eyed across the dinner table and trying to say "You're sick; let me get it for you." Kouryou-chan has more energy than the two of us combined; not good circumstances.

Had a funny incident at work, one of those dvorak moments. One of the testers asked me to come look at something on his machine. At one point, I had to type in some values, and started doing so, and after about fifteen seconds I suddenly realized I wasn't having any trouble at all typing. I stopped, typed a common dvorakism, and it came up. (Qwerty people have, well, QWERTY. Dvorak people have aoeu, which is not pronounceable unless you're having one long vowel movement.) Both of us had the classic "Oh damn" moment as in, "Oh damn, someone else can use my keyboard."

And I'm having a bit of withdrawl. My news server is hosered and I can't get my daily fix of watching other people bitch and moan. I suppose I could watch CNN, but then it wouldn't be people I know. It looks as if the database is rebuilt, but all the counters are reset. Grr.

And I was supposed to go out tonight with a friend, to the 'spot, to do a little dancing and a little serious play. I had clothespins and home-made claws all ready. Instead, I'm home, bemoaning my illness. At least the cat keeps me company.