Week Fourteen of the 52 Blogs project required us to complete a diary for a selected day and post it up on that day. Here is my diary for Thursday April 4, 2013.
Morning
07:20 alarm goes – due to selfish Rachel having 8:30am meeting and selfish Justin having 9am meeting both of us have to be at work earlier than usual (read: on time)
07:25 start making tea, sandwiches, breakfast, etc … get Carter’s school clothes ready
07:30 Carter emerges (note: not from his own bedroom; from Beryl’s – his great grandmother). I ask him to get himself dressed while I make him some porridge. He disappears with his school clothes in hand
07:35 take tea in for Rachel. Retrieve baby, who is now awake. Fail to remark on the typical irony that he will always be the last to wake up on the days that we need to get up early, but will inevitably wake up extra early on weekends and holidays.
07:37 keep baby quiet by feeding him a banana. He alerts me when he’s ready for another piece by pointing emphatically at the banana and shouting: “Daa-yy!”. In the intervening moments I continue making sandwiches, breakfast etc
07:40 Carter re-emerges, still in his underpants – school clothes are nowhere to be seen
07:42 Carter disappears again
07:45 porridge is ready. Carter reappears, still in his underpants. Carter’s lackadaisical approach to our pressured morning routine is matched on by my swiftly rising tension.
07:48 Beryl intervenes: clothes are successfully applied to Carter. Porridge eating commences
07:53 order Carter’s lunch online – after a brief period negotiation we settle upon a toasted baked bean sandwich and an orange slushy
07:58 imminent departure delayed after one of the cats makes its way into the garage
08:00 finally leave the house
08:03 we drop Carter off at before-school care and walk away triumphant
08:12 we take a few moments during the subsequent drive to work to curse the morning traffic
Work pt.1
08:22 get to work. Drop Rachel off, so she can make it to her meeting on time. Park the car
08:23 text the boss to see if he’s gone for coffee yet
08:24 he has not
08:26 drop by boss’s office and form a two-man coffee train
08:31 meet someone in the cafe, whose name I typically fail to remember, and learn that my providing the boss with a downloaded copy of the latest Game Of Thrones episode is merely the first stage in an extensive supply chain
08:33 order coffee
08:34 wait for coffee
08:35 coffee arrives
08:48 head out of the office towards my first meeting of the day, making sure to leave early so I’m not the last person to arrive
08:59 arrive at meeting to find only one other person has turned up so far
09:05 still waiting for all attendees to show up
09:06 meeting starts
09:08 the guy who typically acts like a dick in these meetings commences acting like a dick
09:30 guy who acts like a dick continues to act like a dick. I despair that I was ever invited this meeting
09:48 meeting concludes with me having narrowly avoid killing myself (or someone else in the room)
09:56 back to the office
10:11 finish reading a humorous summary of the first episode of Game Of Thrones (season 3). Realise I’m supposed to be working. Remember that it was the boss who sent me the humourous summary of Game Of Thrones and stop worrying
10:15 a reminder pops up about 10:30 meeting I’d forgotten about
10:23 head off to meeting, once again vowing not to be late
10:29 arrive at meeting venue (the library) to find no one present. I hide in a corner and play with my iPhone so as not to look conspicuous
10:30 suddenly about a dozen people appear out of nowhere wondering if anyone’s going to show up for their meeting. I reveal my presence
11:10 return to office and briefly reconsider will to live given the day’s first meeting
11:15 decide to spend some time working on my presentation for next week (trip to Hobart: see ‘Week Thirteen: Fear’)
11:40 start eating lunch (marmite and peanut butter sandwiches)
11:42 while trying to find pictures of a ‘living room’ I accidentally type ‘loving room’ into Google Image Search – potential disciplinary disaster narrowly averted thanks to Safe Search
11:53 make executive decision to eat another sandwich (in order to kill some more time until lunch)
12:12 finish updating presentation – now officially time for lunch!
Lunch
12:18 embrace my inner meta by starting work on last week’s 52 Blogs entry (‘Week Thirteen: Fear’)
13:06 finish ‘fear’ post
13:21 finish reviewing ‘fear’ post and prepare to upload it
13:22 discover there is no tea in the staff kitchen
13:32 decide to go and steal tea from Rachel
13:45 return to desk: tea successfully acquired
13:51 enjoy a quick catch up on @the_helen’s latest blog post before my final meeting of the day starts (in 9 minutes and counting…)
13:57 embark on a brief Twitter rant inspired by internet people using the word ‘legos’ instead of LEGO or LEGO bricks …
Work pt.2
14:00 meeting starts
14:30 I ramble about knowledge bases and stuff…
14:58 meeting concludes
15:16 get various shit together for Hobart trip next week (print itineraries, copy presentation to USB stick, etc)
15:30 struck with sudden inspiration concerning a much better way of managing the team’s workload in future
15:46 go off and brainstorm recent idea with selected team members
15:55 make various people aware of how crushingly disappointed I am by the mobile friendly webmail option in Exchange 2010 (which was clearly designed with mobile devices circa 2001 in mind)
16:05 finish updating the 07:20 to 08:22 section of my diary for the day
16:08 suggest to Rachel that we leave work with immediate effect
16:08 Rachel responds with: “Yeah, soon…”, pointing out that she didn’t get to work until 8:25 – a fact inconveniently backed up by my diary for the day
Home time
16:25 leave work
16:36 decide to get petrol: it’s Thursday; it’s cheap; we’re going past anyway. We pull into the petrol station
16:37 decide we don’t have time to get petrol, do the shopping and collect Carter from after-school care. We pull out of the petrol station
16:50 arrive at Gateways – shopping time!
16:57 finally track down a replacement steamer in Big W and wonder where all the steamers were the last half dozen times we looked
17:03 leave Big W having decided to get an egg poacher instead
17:20 start stressing over whether we’ll make it in time to collect Carter before after-school care closes at 6pm. Am informed that it’s only 5:20pm
17:45 manage to collect Carter and just about to persuade not to run off to the playground (which typically necessitates a five minute shouting match while we attempt to return him to the car)
… and we’re home
17:55 arrive home. Our playground success is quickly forgotten as Carter immediately instigates a minor domestic incident revolving around a Freddo. Peace returns shortly and the cooking of dinner (pasta and meat sauce: a Rachel speciality) commences
18:07 prepare to feed Stormy. I give him the tin of Heinz Chicken and Pumpkin Rice to hold while I carry him around; disturbingly he immediately attempts to open it by yanking on the ring pull
18:14 Stormy eats the full contents of the tin
18:20 manage to get Carter both in and out of the shower, and washed, with zero trauma – a sure sign of the apocalypse
18:30 enjoy some play time with Stormy
18:40 much amusement watching Carter sitting on Stormy’s ride-on toy while Stormy pushes him around (video to follow)
19:00 put Stormy to bed
19:10 spend some time looking for Ninjago pics to illustrate Carter’s behaviour chart with – I grant Carter editorial control over the final picture choices
19:15 dinner is served! I celebrate the occasion by cracking open a pint bottle of LIttle Creature’s Bright Ale
19:16 Beryl decides to celebrate the occasion with a glass of wine. Unfortunately she appears to have drunk all the red wine during the in-laws’ recent visit. She opts to have a glass of white wine instead. This is Bad News. I decide to do my best to stay out of her path for the rest of the night
19:25 Carter finishes his dinner and then eats his bodyweight in garlic bread as a reward
19:30 while preparing Carter for bed I strike a deal with him for new handwash dispenser, hoping the the promise of acquiring his preferred soap delivery tool will encourage him to wash his hands regularly
19:35 resume battle with Vuze having discovered for the umpteenth time that my scheduled downloads (actually episodes of Emmerdale and Coronation Street for Beryl) have once again failed to download
19:38 figure out that the problem is with Windows UAC, not with Vuze at all. I nevertheless maintain a sense of brooding resentment towards Vuze
19:49 wonder why Carter is not yet in bed yet (bed time is supposed to be 07:30)
19:55 replace batteries in Carter’s toothbrush: Dad of the Year!
19:58 Carter heads off to bed, without a struggle. This means that he has showered, eaten his dinner, and gone to bed in the same evening without the usual histrionics. I genuinely start to fear for the future of the human race
19:59 working day finally ends – leisure time starts
21:25 finally finish re-editing my diary for the day and wonder what happened to my leisure time….