Work, and other mundane things

A friend recently pointed out to me that I hadn’t really kept my blog up-to-date in terms of my job situation, so here is an official update:

As most of you know, one of my previous jobs, an exploration of self-employment, involved what I liked to call “chasing robots”. In a nutshell I worked for a project manager on closing out the installation of a system of Auto-Guided Vehicles, aka robots, at the Ohio State University Medical Center. My duties ranged from producing a training video for the employees to archiving architectural drawings. Previously on this very blog, I mentioned a second project that we were planning to work on in Greenville, SC, but that one didn’t pan out in the end.

Following a hiatus from self-employment where I interned at Highlights for Children, and work for various temp agencies, I am back in self-employment, working for my previous boss on a similar project, this time at the Cleveland Clinic. My boss is in an owner’s rep role this time, working on the Clinic’s behalf to make sure things run smoothly for installing all of the equipment in a (very) large service center that is going to be distributing supplies of all sorts to the main hospital buildings, using robots to transport the supplies from the service center (in the basement of a 4,000-car parking garage, currently under major construction).

So far my job description has varied from setting up a construction-trailer office, to finding a corporate housing solution (we are typically in Cleveland 3 days a week), to creating a spreadsheet comparing the equipment offered by various vendors bidding on one portion of the service center. All in all, it’s been a good fit so far.

This week I also expanded my work options by signing on with a Columbus catering company to serve food and drinks at various events as I can fit them into my schedule.

In other news, this weekend we are collecting the last of our farm-grown food (from the Community Supported Agriculture program we signed up for this year). I was hoping to post a grand tally of the produce we received through the weekly program, but somewhere in the middle, between dashing back and for to Cleveland, my record keeping fell behind. Suffice it to say we have enjoyed countless pints of green beans, many tomatoes, zucchini, and yellow squash, bunches of sweet corn, and occasional surprises (eggplant, Chinese cabbage, and melons).

Headline: ‘Great American Pastime’ Not as Horrible as Expected

A couple of weeks ago, I enjoyed one of the perks of living the life of a consultant: an invitation to a ballgame, all expenses paid. The game in question:

            
Cleveland Indians vs. Minnesota Twins

This being the first professional baseball game I have ever been to, I did not have high expectations that I would enjoy the game itself, but I did do my best to go into the game with a good attitude and an open mind. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful to my hosts, after all. I have watched one or two baseball games on television (boring), but the experience of being there live is definitely more interesting. It also didn’t hurt that we were not sitting on bleacher seats, and in fact were in a ‘luxury suite’.

Here is the setup of the suite. You walk in, and immediately to the left is a bathroom, private to your group. Next a coat closet, and finally into the main room, a living room style room with comfortable couch-style seating, a big screen television on the wall (playing the game, of course), food set out along one wall (typical ballpark fare: nachos, hot dogs, etc.), a kitchenette on the rear wall (one fridge stocked with various soft drinks, one fridge stocked with beer), and finally one wall of mostly windows looking out onto the field. There were also 8-10 stadium seats available, which were out in the larger seating area, but privately accessible only to your suite.

The game started out with a bang: the first inning ended with the home team (Cleveland) up 4-0. The score crept up to 4-3 by the final inning. There are many nuances of the game that I’m sure I missed, but the crowd energy was high, and I did enjoy myself (again, the suite didn’t hurt my opinion any).

Did I mention the dessert cart? While most of the food was a help-yourself sort of arrangement, dessert arrived on a cart in the hallway outside the suite (and I believe was charged to the host on an item-by-item basis). Also while most of the food provided was decently presented, but still ‘ballpark’ quality, the desserts were a cut-above in both presentation and quality. The layered chocolate mousse creation I selected was wonderfully decadent.

Blog Reactivated

Yes, I know. It’s been over a month since I posted anything to this site. Life happens. Work, especially has been taking me to Cleveland several times a month for 2-3 days at a time, and while I’m there I generally haven’t had steady enough Internet access to do more than check e-mail occasionally. But enough with the excuses already…

So, in the past month, this blog has been the target of more than 100 spams, only two of which got past the spam filters and had to be removed manually. Not too bad, I suppose.

On a related note, I also seem to have recently been the target of a virtual card shower. In the past month I have received e-cards from:

a Mate!
a Neighbor!
a Class Mate!
a School-Mate!
someone special!

The e-cards have ranged from “greetings” and “birthday e-cards” to “animations” and “love postcards”.

Point being: if any of you do send me a legitimate e-card, you probably better preface it with a phone call or a personal e-mail.