Boot camp rocks...

or sucks depending on how you look at it. When I came home from my last project I decided to start boot camp cuz one of my girlfriends had great success doing one. So for the last five weeks I've been up at 5:15 AM Monday through Friday rain or shine to go work out with about 15 - 20 other women. Let me assure you the boot camp is kicking my butt.

On a happier note, in four weeks I lost 8 pounds, 7 of which were all fat! Woohoo!!!! Go me! I've dropped 1.5 percent of my body fat and I'm extremely pleased by this. Now I just have to keep it going whenever I finally end up on the road again. :)

Remember when?

Do you remeber when I was BMCing (bitch, moan and complain for those of you who don't personally know me) about traveling nonstop and wanting down time? Well...be careful what you wish for. I've been home since the first week in April and I am BORED out of my everloving mind. I've also burned a weeks vacation and didn't go anywhere.

I HATE being on the beach (company term for no billing project) with nothing to do. Because it is not like being on vaca...at all. I've worked for consulting companies where if you didn't have a project you just had to check in for a couple of hours a day and they didn't care where you checked in from AND you still got paid. I used to frequently check in from the pool deck with a cold one when I was living in Atlanta. But now that I work for one of those uptight management consulting firms who also does tons of govie work, I have to account for ALL my hours. Never mind the 60+ hours I worked during my project, I have to have a charge number for every single hour of the week. And forgive me if I work quickly so what some other moron would take two days to do I usually get done in six hours. (Note to self: work on that concept or at least make it LOOK like it took longer. No need to set the bar that high). I'm ready to go back to work and the picture isn't very rosy right now. The only thing pulling me through is that I have boot camp every morning (will update after Thursday's body composition and yes, I'm a little afraid) and my annual family vaca at the wild and wonderful Myrtle Beach in 26 days! Which I'm brining both of my best girls on this year. I swear my family is going to make us get our own house next year. They have no idea what its like to have all three of us together for any length of time.

Back to BMC...I'm now starting to get a little worried that it might be time to start looking for a new job. I was complacent one time before and got the 'ol heave ho for my efforts. (Ok, it was 2001, Lucent Technologies and 55000 people also got the pink slip.) But still it was traumatic and it took me almost a year to find another job. There is NO WAY I can survive another go round like that.

Plus I swear my SO is about ready to ship me off for points unknown. This is the absolute most time we've spent together since we've known each other. And the condo is just not that big. LOL

Ok..I'm done BMCing, but I swear if something doesn't change soon, I'm going to get a second job just to have something to do.

I need a gig

I've been home for 2 1/2 weeks without being on an assignment. So far I've helped with three proposals (I hate proposals b/c I am NOT a salesperson), cleaned up my previous client's deliverables (so we can use them again, charge a premium for them and the client will think its all new), started boot camp (I f'ing hurt everywhere!) and spent WAY too much money. My bank account says I need to go back on the road soon. I'm a victim of too much month and too little money. But the closet is cleaner than it was and the storage unit is somewhat more organized than it was when I got home. God bless The Container Store. :)

Award snafu

So in my previous post I was ranting about my missing award. This is the resolution...my boss forgot to give it to me. But I now have it and am planning on how to spend my award. It's either going to be on dinner here or something from the Coach store. :)

Thanks for nothing

I was nominated for and received a cash award from my company back in Feb. It wasn't paid in Feb's paycheck which was no big deal. My company is notorious for missing the monthly payroll window.

So I forgot about it and checked my online payroll stubs this morning. I have two: one for my monthly salary and a second mystery stub. Upon checking said stub, I deduce its for my award....except the net pay is ZERO. I got a f'ing award for which I'll get taxed on and I received NOTHING in my account for it.

Please explain that to me!

Before we ever left...

I'm slack. I haven't posted to my blog since I got back from London (which was FABULOUS) and I've since been back to NY, SAT, NY and home. Soooooo....here we go. Whirlwind weekend in London. Overnight flight was great, I slept about three hours, my SO not at all. Seats were awesome, plenty of room good food, on demand games, movies and musics. But before we ever boarded the plane we started having fun. I picked the line to go through security at JFK b/c I NEVER get in the same line as people with kids especially those in a stroller because it takes forever to get through. Yes, I fly every week, I HATE strollers and newbie flyers.

Anywhoo...this is a transcript of the people in front of us in line. Read with a Cockney accent

TSA: Please remove all metal objects and put them in the bin, remove laptops, dvd players, video cameras from their case, keep your boarding pass out and only one carry on plus one personal item per person.
Female passenger: Its against the rules to bring more than x amount of alcohol back into the UK we aren't buying anything else in the duty free shop
Male passenger: But we promised
Female passenger: NO
Male passenger: grumble, grumble, grumble

TSA: Please remove all metal objects from your pockets before passing through security
Male passenger dumps fake fur coat and shoes and carry on in bin and walks through metal detector

BING BING BING (aka as the moron alert)

Male passenger shows off belly to show belt buckle (totally grody by the way)
TSA: Please go back and remove all metal objects from your pockets including keys, change, cell phone, watch, etc.
Male passenger dumps three pounds of change from left pocket and cell phone but doesn't remove belt, watch or wallet.
TSA: Please remove everything from your pockets and take off the belt
Male passenger is like the clown car removing shit from his pockets: more change, wallet, belt, watch, FIVE rings, gold Mr. T chain, etc. Goes back through security and BING BING BING
At this point SO and I are falling on each other laughing b/c the TSA chick is PISSED!!!!! And not being nice about it.
TSA: COME BACK HERE AND REMOVE EVERYTHING FROM YOUR POCKETS. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?
Male Passenger remove THREE condoms from back pocket
TSA: Condoms?!? Really are you serious?!?! CONDOMS?!?!?! I said take EVERYTHING out of your pockets. These are FOIL. They set off the metal detector. Is there anything else in your pockets, any of your pockets?!?!?
Male passenger: No I don't think so
TSA: Go through the metal detector now and I don't want you to come back here again

Male passenger finally gets through security and his wife who is already through security is about to blow a gasket.

SO and I proceed through with no problems. Of course I need to change my pants after peeing on myself from laughing so hard at the idiots. I love traveling! International is the best!

BTW...this couple was across the aisle from us on the flight over. They continued behaving as if they owned the damn plane and needed rock star treatment the whole flight and continued fighting about the duty free alcohol. LOL

Cheers

I'm back! At least physically I'm back in the States and have been since about 10 PM Monday. All I have to say is I love that city and I am sooo going back to London. The other half and I had an absolute blast. Short story is lots of walking, little sleep, British breakfasts, football, the tube, drizzle and a new suitcase for the trinkets we brought back. I'll go into more detail later, but I'm alive, we had a great time and it sucks to be back at work. I still haven't caught up on my sleep but I'm planning to while I'm in San Antonio this weekend. :)