Some Things Make No Sense

Working out of the house, in fact, any job where you're working out of home, seems to me to be almost more trouble than it's worth. Mind you, I'd love to be able to have the autonomy of doing as much as I want, when I want. Trouble comes when you have to remind yourself, 'hey, stupid, you're at work...'

Okay, so it's not so much me as it is the dog. I sat down yesterday morning, Tour De France playing on the television behind me, to work at the research I've been (unsuccessfully) trying to find (again!) over the past week. Sitting in a pair of shorts. The dog, God bless him, wanted to get my attention by pawing my leg. Greyhounds have large paws and strong claws built for traction on dirt tracks and grass fields...the places they were bred to run. Rubin hasn't learned a couple of things:

1. His own strength.
2. The concept of weekdays - I've always mentioned to friends that 'every day is Saturday when you are a greyhound.'
3. Dad's legs aren't as strong as his.


The electric bill has been gawd-awful, much to do with me using more juice while working or hanging out. I don't think my employer is going to pay for the increased electric usage I'm going through. However, it would be nice. I mean, if I'm going to get heated up over trying to research here I might as well have 20 hours of my electricity per week subsidized by my boss/my company. It'd be far cheaper than what my company wants to do in a couple of weeks.

Who was the genius who thought of the idea, 'hey, let's spend $1000-1500 in salary, $150 in per diem, $500-1000 in travel expenses, for 135 persons to fly in and be harangued at for two days?' Ostensibly, the rationale is to 'celebrate our successes and get to know each other better.' Hello? Didn't the center director, his operations head, and another of his lackeys already do the "magical mystery tour" months ago?

I'm not always strongly opposed to spending money, more to the waste of money, especially when it means having to undergo the rigors of big mileage travel. We have no travel funding for projects, but $500,000 a whack for a meeting that's normally attended by one-tenth that amount is insane. I don't mind traveling for work, pleasure travel is more fun...but the operating word is 'work.' If all you're going to do is fly me some place so I can be forced to share a van/life with my co-workers, as well as sit around all day in a tie...

Fortunately for me, my wife has business to attend to at about the same time. We both don't go out of town at the same time unless we are together.