The soda machine at work says "Exact Change Only" but what it means is "I am full of change, so I will only accept dollar bills for a $1.25 soda and give you three quarters in return." This is in fact the opposite of the phrase "Exact Change Only." But this is also the soda machine that thinks that it is reasonable to turn itself off at 18:00 in a programming shop and refuse to dispense caffeinated beverages to a cube farm full of programmers. If the machine thinks crimes against humanity are fair game, what's a little lie?

Every few weeks I manage to accumulate a pile of paperwork that can only be dealt with during business hours. Since I'm trying to actually be productive during the business hours that I'm actually awake with work-related items, these things tend to pile up. Then I'll find my cell phone headset and crank through the entire pile in my morning commute as I did this morning. I was able to schedule a new doctor appointment, resolve a misdirected insurance claim, change the names on my homeowner policy, convert my American Express Gold Rewards card to a no-fee Blue card, and clean out my cell phone voice mail (9 messages) in a twenty minute commute. Not too shabby.

Today I'm in day two of a SharePoint class at the office. The only flaw is that all the instruction materials are written in some Microsoft language filled with hundreds of different twelve letter words that all essentially distill down to "work", "use" or "share." I'd get more irritated at this fact except for the fact that I can read this language reasonably fluently, and that's one of the reasons why folks pay the big bucks for me to help them write software that helps them "utilize knowledge management architectures leveraging competencies throughout multiple organizational structures."

Sigh.

Any question why a action-packed workday in my industry makes me want to shove a sharpened pencil in my eye?

Last night the kitten slept with me either on my pillow or next to me in the bed, very quietly. It was delightful.

Bike exercise: 5.82 miles in 25:28 minutes, ended at 17:38 hours, temperature 83 degrees F and sunny.

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