Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Post 2173 - Wednesday

Are you detecting a trend in the blog post naming this week?  Anybody want to guess that tomorrow's will be called?

Let's see here.  I took my lunch to work today and forgot to eat it.  Me forgetting to eat lunch is like a guy forgetting to check his fly when he leaves the washroom.  But I managed it anyway.  It will languish in the fridge at work until tomorrow, unless I forget to eat it again.

After work, I went to Toastmasters.  I had a very difficult time finding a place to park.  There was a Mooseheads game this evening.  The team is doing so well this year that they're selling out, or nearly selling out, every home game.  Great for them, but not so great if you need to find a parking space anywhere close to where you want to go.  I ended up parking on Hollis Street behind Maritime Centre, and then trudging the distance to the World Trade Centre on Argyle.  Not that long a walk, but longer than I felt like walking.

The meeting was fine.  More than fine, actually.  We had a ton of guests, so many in fact that we ran out of chairs and a couple of them had to stand in the doorway of the room we meet in.  One of those folks ended up winning this week's Table Topics competition, along with a cappuccino mug and spoon, so he was happy.

What's table topics, you ask?

It's all about speaking off the cuff, with little or no preparation time.  I have found that it has helped me think very quickly on my feet.  People at my work wonder how I am able to come up with witty comments in response to what another person said.  It is because I have been doing Table Topics for 21 years.

A few years ago, I was in a learning session with a few people from work, along with my boss, Kevin. We were discussing Oracle and how they combine some commands into one to make things more efficient.  One such command was an "upsert", a combination of an update and insert.

Instantly, I said, "Well, I guess they could also have called it "indate.  Indate.  That's what we do in the Keddy family."

Hilarity ensued.  People caught my allusion.  I didn't have to say another thing, so I didn't.  But the moment was a genuine one and so was the laughter.  We were down for a good 3 minutes before resuming the session.

I have no idea where that line came from, folks.  I had only heard the term upsert 10 seconds earlier.  But my years of having to speak in front of groups of people and having had to make up what I was saying as I was going along, all have helped me say this outrageous things.

There are other examples.  I probably shouldn't be spelling out too many of them for fear of the wrong person reading them and thinking that I was talking about him.

Anyway, the meeting went well.  I made my walk back to the car and drove home.  Patricia was in her fave chair covered in a blanket to stay warm. Newbie greeted me at the door.  About 2 hours ago, shortly after 8, I came downstairs where I have been ever since.


Newbie is next to me, resting on the top of a bookcase, waiting for me to finish typing in this crap so that we can head off to bed.  Horny little bastard.   He's insatiable.  I'm not complaining.   Just stating some observations.


Tomorrow is my Friday.  I will be at my mom's this weekend, and she is already drawing out a plan of attack for the malls and other shopping opportunities.  I really must buy her a GPS unit to make this process easier for her.  

See you tomorrow.

Bevboy

No comments: