Boulder to London

This weekend could have been incredible.  The weather was beautiful, I’m not on a project and I should be hanging out with a cold beer in the park.  Unfortunately I was pulled onto a proposal last week that kept me in the office most evenings this week.  The proposal is due on Monday and there is still quite a bit to do so weekend work it is.   Weekend work is bad enough as it is, but yesterday proved a bit more difficult than expected.

Problem 1 was getting out of bed and out of the house.  It had been a long week and I was quite happy to hang out in bed late into the morning.  When I finally got out of bed, Melisse had breakfast ready and we enjoyed some coffee from the espresso machine that she got me for my b-day!  Around 10 or 10:30 I made it out of the house to head into the office.  I enjoyed a nice walk to the train station as it was a very nice day.  I decided to stop by Starbucks as I figured some more caffeine may help improve my energy level.  When I arrived in the office I encountered Problem 2.

Problem 2 was the security guy at the door when I showed up.  He looked at me as I picked up the pen to sign in and said…’You can’t go in there’.  I replied, ‘Huh?’ to which he responded, ‘Power’s out.  You got an e-mail yesterday saying the entire building would be closed all weekend’.   I thought to myself…remember to quit deleting company wide e-mails.  I asked if I could go up and get my computer and he said…’No, no one is allowed in.’  At this point I was a little fired up.  My productivity was shot as I came all the way into the office and now had to find a different place to work.  I talked the guy into letting me go in and get my computer since I couldn’t’ do anything without it and headed back to the train station.  At the train station I came across Problem 3.

Problem 3 was not quite known at the time, but I should have guessed that the easy ride home wouldn’t be based on the day’s events so far.  When I came into the train station I saw that my train was at platform 3 and headed over.  It was scheduled to leave in a few minutes so I ran down the platform a ways and jumped on.  I was in a hurry and a bit annoyed, but I did notice the smell of someone smoking when I got on.  As I took a second look, I was surprised to see a large man with no shirt, a few tattoos and a pair of board shorts hanging out in the doorway of the train smoking his cigarette.  In all my time in London I’ve never seen this…any of it, but especially someone smoking on a train and thought, this is not right.  I tried to move cars, as did a few other people around me, but the door was locked between the cars so I made my way to the other end of the train.  As I passed the guy going the other way I noticed that half of his crack was hanging out the back and his hand was stuffed down the front of his shorts.  At this point I decided the further away the better.  The train finally got underway and as it did, the guy took his seat and opened up a tall boy of lager and started talking to a few passengers around him about where the train was going.  I kept my head low and pretended to be checking my blackberry.  For whatever reason, the train was not working correctly.  It stopped about every 2 minutes and took about 20 minutes to make the usual 8 minute journey.  The guy in the shorts was pretty calm, but downed 2 of his 6 beers in the 20 minutes.  Another passenger next to me had a serious issue with the delay and started dropping f-bombs left and right and went on a mini-rant about the public transport in London.  When we finally made it to Clapham Junction I was fought my way back up Northcote road (dodging moms and babies the entire way).  I made it back home about 3 hours after I left to finally start working on the proposal.

I finished what I could do on the propodal about 10PM andwas up again this morning around 8 to finish up my part…maybe next weekend I’ll get to enjoy a little down time after we finish up the move and get settled in the new place!