Backup

I have tried very hard this weekend to be relaxed after a huge work week. It didn't help when I worked half of Saturday but I was reasonably successful in doing so for the rest of the weekend. I particularly needed the break because work in all respects was full on and will remain so during the silly season, especially after the teleconference I had late Friday afternoon when I was negotiating a deal with a rather evasive and egotistical character. I had to do some heavy duty verbal acrobatics but eventually cornered him into a position. To seal the deal, I quickly sent an email to confirm the position and CC-ed the email to a few other people who previously wouldn't concede their position. If I achieved anything, these guys are now hopefully panicking internally, wondering if and how they could back-paddle, now that they had given ground. Friday evening I knew it was going to be a bit of a white wash on Friday night because the movie choices were very limited but being t...

It was quite an eventful week at work. I felt like I did a lot but was not necessarily productive. I had to attend a high level negotiation near the end of the work week. I think I performed pretty well and was in control of the whole meeting from beginning to end. Sometimes I surprise myself by my capacity to deal with situations like this where I am sure some people would feel quite intimidated and freeze; I often surprise myself that I could engage my brain calmly and take control of the situation. I don't think anyone is born with that skill because the more I do it, the more natural it becomes, so it must be a learned skill. Friday evening After a lot of running around during the week, I was glad to see Friday evening. Because we were seeing The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, everyone decided to come. Also, as it was the first of the movie since it came out, I bought everyone's ticket online before we met up. Just as well, a lot of the seats were already taken but...

It was a profoundly horrific and sad weekend. I am still reeling from the events in Paris (which happened on their Friday night) and feel a deep sense of sadness for what had happened. The multiple terrorist attacks on Paris was the 9/11 of Europe. At this stage, 132 people were confirmed dead. Terrorists either blew themselves up or shot at people at public places, including a restaurant, a stadium, and within the close confines of a concert hall. The utterly barbaric and unforgivable acts were punctuated by these terrorists telling people to lie on the ground and then proceeded to shoot them anyway. There were no words for the heinousness of these crimes. Friday evening There were only the three of us on Friday night because the other boys piked, so Sam, Jake, and I had dinner at Grill'd together. Afterwards, I grabbed another Airport Extreme from the Apple Store and went to a few shops with the boys before we went to see The Last Witch Hunter. Okay, if you are lookin...

I can only laugh. LOL. It all started on Friday at work when my business partner gave me a bag of 7 Apple Airport Expresses. I previously installed them in his palatial home but he recently had his home professionally hardwired with industrial networking gear, so he gave all the Airport Expresses to me. Me being me, first thing on Saturday morning, I started tinkering with our home network, only that the power point adapters somehow stopped working and the network collapsed, so I spent most of the weekend resetting up the whole thing. LOL. Meanwhile, I was very happy that our annual meeting for the organisation at which I volunteered was over and done with for another year. I took over MC-ing the whole gig this year, so that caused me a little bit of stress. But it was the best annual meeting we had ever had. I was quite pleased with how things went and many people stayed behind afterwards, not wanting to leave, which was usually a good gauge of how the meeting went. Now that the a...

Last week was exhausting. Apart from doing my professional job, I had effectively been acting his counseller for a couple who were both friends and clients. I tried very hard not to get between them and be as detached as I could but that had taken a toll on my emotional well being. No matter how much I tried, it was hard not to not pick up some negative emotions along the way. Meanwhile, things were coming to a head at the organisation where I volunteered. It culminated to a half-expected outcome today. The only thing I could say was that we stuck to our guns and refused to succumb to enormous pressure because the other organisation with whom we were dealing was substantially larger than us. But then again, just because I thought I did well and the right thing didn't made me immune from picking up negative energy. I reckon by the time we leave for Europe in December, I would have well and truly earned the trip! Friday evening As I keep saying to Sam, I have always been the ...