Exciting Crescendo

I started the day early and I started it without food. I was up and showered before the sun and went out before work to shovel my driveway and walk to the mail. I put on my old Aggie jacket to see if it still fit. It does! It actually fits now. It was always too big for me in school. Leaving it in a closet for ten years and gaining a bunch of weight did the trick. Now it’s nice and snug. I forgot how warm it is. Maybe I’ll take it out again. I’ve had it for almost twenty years now, geez I’m getting old. I snapped a picture when I came in, hence the stupid expression here. I made to my desk just in time for the first meeting of the day.

As I was awaiting my computer startup, then restart for some update I got the news. A corn trait that I started working with back in 2015 finally got it’s last layer of approval from our friends in the EU Commission and is free to commercialize without restriction now. We did some sales under very heavy restriction last year to prime the market but now it’s go time. A short while later an announcement went out wider and then on our North American townhall meeting some big shots brought it up. Communication to customers went out and the rest will happen Monday. It was a big deal and an excellent start to the day. My meeting covered mostly US issues so I hung in but didn’t engage. I had three things pop up suddenly at once and I was all over the place to get the fires tamed. I was really starting to buzz at this point, just flying. More things popped up and I was slicing through them like an 8” Paudin kitchen knife. By about half eleven things started to settle down and I chose to take a break ahead of one. I took my Great Value Hawaiian thin crust out of the fridge to find it was broken and breaking. That wasn’t good. I managed to get it into the oven and have it cook. You can see that I added some additional cheese to it, Great Value Nacho Blend shredded to be precise. When it was done I dolloped on some spicy but very flavourful hot sauce. I used the Ring of Fire sauce from Haico Hot Sauce. It was fantastic and really added nicely to the sweetness of the pizza.

A good jag of the afternoon was spent on the phone catching up with colleagues. Everyone was excited about the big news. There were a couple calls relating to the morning’s issues but mostly the big news. Someone scheduled a Teams meeting so we could all get on camera and have a cheers to celebrate finally getting this one over the finish line. It was a long haul and a lot of extra work for everyone. I snuck down at half three and got my ingredients together. I was going to finish some of the very fancy pop that GRP and KJMH got me for Christmas with some Northern Harvest. I even used a mug as an impromptu ice bucket for multiple rounds. I hustled it all upstairs and finished off some last minute items to close out the week and prepare for the toast.

The preparation was likely the actual crescendo of the day. After about twenty minutes it was all done up. I turned my camera off around half past. Mostly because all the booze swarmed into my face and lit me up like Ruldolph’s nose. It happens sparingly and most often when I take long breaks between drinks. So basically everytime these days. I didn’t hang on much longer. I closed down my machine and did the MSC daily challenges on my personal computer before getting a video call from Duffman. It had been a very long while since we’d caught up, let alone seen each other’s faces. His call wasn’t unexpected. I had received a Christmas card from him in the post that morning and seeing a child on it, I text him a WTF type message. He replied that he was hoping to avoid telling me until I came to visit next, thinking it would be a hilarious gag if I showed up and he had a kid with some age on it. I whole heartedly agreed that it would have been an epic stunt. With the world being what it was in our corner of it, he knew it could be a couple more years before I got back there so he sent the Christmas card, the next best thing. We had a good chat for about ninety minutes. Of note was that when shown the device with my super red face on it, their daughter immediately started screaming and crying. It happened again on the second replication as well. Only by the third time did she look at me without fear. Typical reaction for a child seeing me. When that was done I scrambled down to have a bowl of soup as the Leaf game started. Only, my hustle wasn’t really necessary. Turns out I wasn’t allowed to watch the game. The league has imposed ridiculous restrictions on broadcasters for some reason that I don’t understand.

The best I could do was post a whiny tweet about it. I got way more engagement from that tweet than all of my recent ones combined. One commenter suggested I listen to them on the radio instead. I had completely forgotten the radio option! Since I couldn’t watch Cheese’s virtual improv show on Facebook Live without an account this is what I did. I found TSN Radio 1050 Toronto on the Radio Player Canada website and turned off the screen and the lights to let Joe Bowen paint a picture with his words of what I was missing with my eyes. There was some chirping from a co-worker but otherwise I sat listening with rapt attention to what unfolded. The Leafs took the win, four to two and I hustled up to bed to get ready for what promises to be a busy Saturday.