The wisdom of a fool won’t set you free

Life has been demanding lately. At work I’ve been transitioning to a new team while still maintaining some responsibility for the product the Splash team just shipped. I’ve also been working on another project outside of work that has been very demanding of my time. Today was supposed to be the first day working from home since the EFI office in Vancouver is now officially closed. Unfortunately, because of the recent time crunch, I didn’t have time to move my work stuff (and there’s a lot of it) home until Friday when Tina and the boys helped me lug a few computers and displays home. I spent the better part of the three day weekend emptying my office at home, cleaning it and redecorating. I didn’t completely finish but it’s in a workable state and most of the junk I moved out is no longer cluttering the rest of the house.

The lowlight of the weekend had to be when I was in the garage yesterday retrieving a small stool to use as a stand for my network equipment. Delighted that I had found the perfect piece of furniture for the task, I merrily and obliviously began walking into the house when I felt excruciating pain in my foot. The pain was so intense that my knees buckled and I fell into a kneel. When the pain moved to my knees, I realized that I was on the plastic floor mat that I had removed from my office the night before. Just 30 seconds prior I had gingerly stepped over the nasty spikes of the upside-down mat but my jubilation over finding the stool had caused me to forget about the mat. I desperately tried to crawl off the mat, but found that my hands were even more vulnerable to the spikes. Finally, I simply fell to my side and rolled off. As I lay on the cement floor of the garage gasping from the pain after having my breathe literally taken away, Thomas’ kitten, Baby, walked up and sniffed my face wondering what the hell I was doing. I was asking myself the same thing.

After a few minutes to catch my breathe, I returned to my office with the stool and attempted to install it as planned. It wasn’t long before I noticed my left big toe and left hand were bleeding. I looked down at the carpet and saw that it was now stained with blood spots arranged exactly the same as the spikes on the mat. The blood stain pattern matched perfectly the wound pattern on my knees. Not wanting to further stain the carpet that I had so fastidiously cleaned the night before, I dragged myself back to our bedroom where Tina salved and bandaged my wounds.

Today I’m going to get rid of some of the junk and then go up to Vancouver to get the rest of my work stuff. My ToDo list is chock full and needs to be relieved!