Wednesday, 08 September 2010
A couple of years ago, one of my co-workers went on a vacation to Europe. On the day he returned to work, there happened to be a planned outing with our department. Specifically, we went on a company-paid outing to a St. Paul Saints game. During the game, I turned around and said to my co-worker (who was sitting in the row behind me): “You picked the perfect day to come back to work.”
And, guess what? Today, I picked the perfect day to return to work, too. It wasn’t intentional; I planned to take off six weeks and today happens to be the day Isla turns six weeks old. I didn’t even know that today was going to be the perfect day to return until about three weeks ago.
See, one day, in mid-August, I checked my work email. I checked it a few times while on leave and, on that particular day, there was an email reminding everyone about a group outing scheduled for September 8th.
So, today, I showed up at work for the first time in six weeks. I arrived at 8:15 and, at 11:30, I left to go to Fish Lake Park. For the next four hours, I ate, drank, and played volleyball and Apples To Apples. While playing volleyball, I accidentally launched the ball into my manager’s gut, who reminded me to be careful since it’s my first day back. I’m hoping he was just joking around.
Thursday, 09 September 2010
I spent my first “lunchbreak” finishing up my presentation for Saturday. In case you don’t know, I’ve been invited to speak at the Maple Gove Critical Thinkers’ Club this weekend.
My presentation will be four parts:
1 – The history and evolution of Jehovah’s Witnesses
2 – My story as a Jehovah’s Witness
3 – Why I left the religion
4 – Atheism
Yeah, that last one doesn’t really fit with the other three..so I’m just gonna spend about 2 minutes on that. In fact, I think I’m only gonna spend about 2 minutes on the first part, too. Because, of course, since I was raised as a Witness, I have no idea how the movement started. I’ll mention something about New York’s 19th-Century Burned Over District, then move on to Russell’s move to Brooklyn, then Rutherford’s strong-arming, and probably end with “yeah, so, now there’s 7 million active Witnesses, and another 7 million who are too smart to go door-to-door.”
The president of the club says they’ll likely only be about 15 people in attendance, including a Scientologist, a Professor of Religious History, a psychiatrist who has worked with former cult members, and a former Mormon. Oh, goodie! I’m sure I’ll be roasted alive.
Friday, 10 September 2010
Well, it’s been a long week of work, what with not working on Monday or Tuesday at all, getting paid to go on a picnic on Wednesday and then – pow! – two grueling days of work (in a row!) on Thursday and Friday.
I think my workday really peaked when a co-worker sent me this link:
Yeah, that was probably the best five minutes of my workday.
I’m gonna have to remember to add that quote to my list of favorites: “In the middle of opportunity…excuse me.” Brilliant!
Despite it’s immense humor content, I want to mention a couple of more serious things about this video:
1) Many of the commenters for this video feel that this is a perfect example of the Republican Party: How it uses fear and emotion to win votes instead of appealing to logic. Well, yes, this man doesn’t exactly shatter any stereotypes I have about Republicans, but here’s the tidbit in their favor: they didn’t give this man their enorsement. Yeah, that’s right, he wanted to be the Republican nominee for treasurer in Stark County, Ohio, but the Republcans who voted in that primary picked someone else. So…good for you Republican voters: thanks for weeding out the really terrible people.
2) Some seem to doubt that his degree in communication is for real. Others wonder what sort of wacky college conferred such a degree upon this loony. My take is this: I doubt he was lying; I really believe that he DOES have a degree in communications. It seems odd, I know. But I’ve known plenty of excellent communicators with no degree whatsoever, and plenty of lousy communicators with degrees. I think the same could be said for just about any field of study, too.
Man, I’m spent now. Good thing I have a three-day weekend coming up
He must of been working on gestures.
…Or maybe volume and pausing.