Best Laid Plans

The day in Leeds yesterday was a long one; I didn’t get home until 9pm, but it was a fairly successful day; 90% ‘Congratulations’ and only 10% ‘Whoops, should have thought of that!’. It was fairly intense work though – I bought sandwiches on the way up to the office from the station and basically didn’t stray further than ten yards from the IT room for the whole time I was there.

On the train journey in the morning, I got quite a bit of thinking done and roughed out a couple of project plans to work on later, so on the whole I felt pretty righteous.

Today actually started with a hospital appointment – it was the follow up with the dermatologist after my visit in November last year. A quick look at the mole and the photo from the file and we agreed that I would have to find something else to die from, as this clearly wasn’t anything to worry about. Jolly good.

Work was engaging, if a little annoying when I had to deal with a project manager casting around to find someone to blame for her lack of ability to properly scope and budget a project. I rather have the urge to have a quiet word with her boss, but then maybe better to let sleeping dogs lie. I’m sure she’ll think more carefully about infrastructure costs in the future…

The social calendar is in flux at the moment. Tomorrow is in the diary for a poker game, so tonight Brett and I needed to do some serious clearing up in the flat. I don’t think we’ve washed any dishes since the weekend because of a succession of late nights working on one thing or another for both of us. However, in the course of confirming who was going to be coming along, it turns out that pretty much no-one was going to be able to make it so, with a certain sense of relief, I cancelled the evening and am now looking forward to a nice relaxing Friday evening… albeit surrounded by dirty crockery.

The upside was that, not having to get home on time, I was able to accept a last-minute invite from Leeds’ John G for a drink after work. We’ve been trying to meet up for lunch for months, but between his schedule and my schedule we’ve never quite managed it. He was in Edinburgh yesterday when I was in Leeds, but today it turned out that his training course in London was actually a two-day thing, so he was unexpectedly in town for the evening. We met up in the Dogget’s Coat and Badge and had a pint. John M appeared too – I think they must have been introduced at the performance of You’ll Do For Now in July and subsequently kept in touch through Out – and after finishing our drinks we went for a bite to eat on Gabriel’s Wharf. All very pleasant – although I feel that I ought to not feel quite so light-headed after only two pints of lager, even on an empty stomach! What a lightweight!

Finally, on totally different note, I feel rather sorry for Dick Cheney at the moment. After his accidental shooting of a friend the other day I could see that the satirists would get some decent comedy mileage out of it, but seeing so many Democrats flocking around and wringing political points out of the unhappy situation is really rather sickening. No-one has suggested it was anything other than an accident on a private outing, so you’ve really got to be stretching things to link it with Cheney’s actions or obligations as Vice-President. Whatever I’ve got against Dick Cheney’s politics and policies, my heart goes out to him for having nearly killed his friend while they were supposed to be out enjoying themselves together. Give the guy a break. How would you feel!?

The only thing that needs to happen now to really make this an example of the New American Dream in action is for Harry Whittington to make a full recovery and then sue Cheney for millions. That is the American way, after all…