First, an earthquake. Next up, a hurricane

It's been a big fat bunch o' work that's been going on lately. The good news is we are signed off to go live!!!! It's paying off - and I'm BEYOND EXCITED to see this project I've spent a year working on go into production. The best part of the last 2 weeks was the day I got to hear the entire QA team go around the room and say they had signed off their pieces of the release, and then when I got to say "We're a go from business" - that feeling, it was good.

Last week was a pretty good week - I could tell we were coming into completion, and the pressure had released somewhat from having to be so anal about every little thing that was going on. On top of that, we had a group in from the SF office - we're already kicking off my new project, and they had come in so that they could meet everyone and so that we could do our actual kickoff. The week went super fast because of that.

Last Wednesday, I met the Blonde One at our local bar - we're headed to see the Jets/Bills game Thanksgiving weekend with our bartender, and he had our tickets we needed to pick up. We stopped in for a few drinks, which easily turned into Shit Show, volume Wednesday, edition #24023032.

Last Thursday, the offices were moved. We stayed in the same bldg, same floor, but everyone (except for me and 2 others) had their offices rotated around. Due to this, we were kicked out of the bldg at 4 pm. Me and 5 others decided to make the most of it and hit up a bar by work - we had a blast, and conversation ranged all over the place.

Then last Friday, it was off to the Bierhaus! A group of us from work had bought a Groupon - and it was $29 all you could eat brats and pretzels, with a liter of beer. The Bierhaus is by my work, and it's a new beergarden (obviously). OMG - they had sausages with cheddar stuffed inside. The sun started shining when I bit into that. And the beer.... oh so good. We had only meant to stay for 2 hours, but uh, it was longer than that. When we left, Blondie and I decided to walk across the island (2miles ish). As we were slowly making our way home through everyone that had just gotten off work for the day (hahahhahah! I was done 5 hours earlier!), we spotted a bar called "Point Break". We HAD to stop in - not only did it have awesome HH specials, "Point Break" brings back the best memories of Shelbs and Bbbb. After "Point Break", it was off to our local bar to round out the evening.

Saturday I laid in a ball on the floor all day, comforting my liver after 3 days of abusing it. And Sunday I drug myself down to the gym and had a pretty good run - my leg finally feels like it's loosening up in these new shoes. Which is relief.

After the run, Blondie and I caught a train over to Queens to watch a Mets/Brewers game! We had tickets to this game last year and it got rained out, so we turned our tickets in for this game instead. It was so much fun, and Blondie was rooting for his hometeam (Brewers) who actually won! It's not surprising that they won as they are really good this year, but it is surprising that a team we root for actually won. The game was fun, the weather was beautiful, and the Brewers won. Who can beat that?

On Sunday night, after we got home, I was talking to Blondie and within the space of like 5 seconds, I realized I was sick. I literally went from feeling 100% good to sick over the course of 5 minutes. I went to bed super early hoping to nip it in the bud, but that didn't happen. I've spent the last 4 days hacking my lungs out, wheezy breathing, snotty nose - it's been awful. And because of where we are at for launching my project next week, I've had to go into the office each day.

On Tuesday, we had a big earthquake hit - and par for the course, I didn't feel anything. Blondie felt it at the apartment, and even where I was at work, everyone else felt it - but not me. I sat at my desk through it and didn't realize anything was going on. A friend of mine was like "WHAT??!?!? How did you miss that!??!?! My chair was rocking, my desk was shaking!" and I was like "huh, not sure how I did miss that". Another friend of mine from SF had also pinged me - "did you feel the earthquake???" and this was before I knew we had an earthquake - I thought he was being fun that we had gotten approved for launching my project - like "omg! you're launching! the world is coming to an end!"

On Wednesday, our bartender called and it turns out he thinks he can get us all tickets to the Packers/Giants game in December! We got super excited about that - and we're keeping our fingers crossed that this comes through.

Today I have to go to work for a few hours, and then it's prep-time for Hurricane Irene. We're in a flood zone - but luckily, we're in a high rise. My zone is not mandatory evacuation zone, but we're 1 level away from it. I have to get a lighter today for candles in case we lose power, and we're going to do some light grocery shopping. Blondie is in charge of clearing off our patio, getting all the candles in 1 place, and filling up a bunch of water bottles. It's weird to be doing this prep work as it's a GORGEOUS day out today - sunny and beautiful, no clouds, and to think that tomorrow this time, the rain starts to hit, and by Sunday this time, the eye of the hurricane could be somewhere near us. It's a little unnerving.

Funny thing - I've always thought I would like to live in Miami, and Blondie has always nixed that plan - he doesn't like hurricanes, and refused to even talk about moving there. Hmmmm.....

Hope everyone is well, and that you are earthquake/hurricane free!

--K