Sorry I haven't updated in a VERY long time. Things have been…

Ray got really, really sick over Christmas. He started feeling bad Christmas Eve. Then, by Christmas Day he was flu-like. The next day (Boxing Day) he started vomiting and was running a very high fever. He couldn't keep food down at all. By the 30^th, he wasn't able to even keep down water and he was still running a fever off and on. So, by that evening, he was so dehydrated that I had to take him into the A&E. They gave him a couple of bags of saline, pumped him full of antibiotics and did some blood work. (It turns out the antibiotics were probably useless because it was probably some combination of the norovirus and the flu.) They were concerned about the results of the blood work, so they ended up admitting him for observation, but, of course, that meant moving him to another hospital. I went to visit on New Year's Eve, and he was finally a) hydrated and b) eating c) keeping that food and water down. I managed to convince them that, as it was New Year's Eve, in a country that drinks as much as it does, that they would need the beds in the hospital for other folks, and so, Ray came home. He's been recovering slowly, and is now able to get around a bit, though he gets tired really quickly. He was hit a lot worse than most folks, it seems.

Then, on top of all of that, I've got work stuff that I've been struggling with… One particular customer is eating up large chunks of my time and this is the first day, other than Ray being sick on 31 Dec and 1 Jan, that haven't worked for better than a month now. Then there is the ever-present pressure of trying to give some semblance direction to a global team, and attempting to mediate various disputes between folks who just plain don't like each other and trying to implement changes that would be beneficial for everyone… It is a lot tougher than it seems like it should be. People take offense at things that were never meant as offensive and take it as a joke when it was meant to be an offensive jab to wake them up. It's unprofessional to have to yell at the top of my lungs to stop someone from talking, but I am not going to take shit from someone just because he doesn't want to listen. It was fine in the end – we all talked through it and got somewhere, but at the same time, it should never have gotten to that point.

All this time, on top of all of this, is the normal seasonal kind of depression, so I really feel like that Reel Big Fish song... And trying to deal with people on a personal level at work is a bit difficult. There is only one person there who I talk to on any kind of frequent basis that 1) is my intellectual equal and 2) I actually get along with. (That isn't to say everyone where I work is stupid, just that I don't talk to a lot of people on a personal level. I certainly don't mind talking about unimportant things with folks, and I enjoy brainless chatter sometimes, but I HATE people with uninformed opinions, who can't be bothered to think for themselves…) I find that I am attacking folks I shouldn't be. (I mean, if he's a selfish little child with no sense of responsibility, I shouldn't bother telling him until it actually affects me, right?) And I am having a lot of trouble controlling my temper at work. Oh well, it should get better soon…

Also, one last note: I am going to do the Super Sprint distance of the London Triathlon this year. No, it's not a long distance at all, but it would be the first race I've ever done of any kind. We will see how it goes! Today I need to get new running shoes because my Brooks Addictions just don't last at all…