(Not a 1-minute truthbomb. More like a 5 minute read. Still amusing. Still real).
So after the comedy of errors that arrived the week of Oct 18, 2010, I started jotting this down. And lo:
- Weekend prior: started off awesome with the weekend spent in Pepin, WI area for amazing cycling, and dinner at Harbor View Cafe both eves. Totally dandy. One of the best restaurants in either MN or WI.
- Monday: total hard drive failure. No backup other than email on the Exchange server so all emails safe. I work from home, not on a network, and have dozens of legal contracts, proposals, pricing grids, etc. carefully formatted. All vanished. On phone for hours w/my firm's IT dept, then Dell themselves. My pc was under warranty with next day onsite repair (one good thing). First I went to Chipheads nearby who confirmed the drive was dead. Said data recovery was possible for $1,500 minimum. Needs a 'clean room' to occur. Monday afternoon: scheduled to meet my company's COO who's in from Paris, at the MSP airport for an hour of Q4 pipeline review after his client visits. Meanwhile I needed an emergency backup pc, which my ma has, so needed to get up to her place late afternoon to nab. COO late to airport, I wait for him for an hour, trying to call him on his French mobile, no luck. Leave. He emails me 20 min later asking where I am. Blew off the COO. This called a CLM. Monday nite: hired collegemusclemovers.com to pack up my stereo speakers. Keep reading.
- Tuesday: Dell chap arrived, put in a new hard drive, installed Windows and split. See: a laptop w/only Windows on it won't do much. Works, but won't do much. Can't even get online, or doing so (via wifi) is a mystery. But I have webmail for work, which is painful. Monday eve: after weeks of auditioning and back and forth, agree to swap my expensive and huge (200lbs each) stereo speakers with a local guys very, very exotic (IRS Gamma's) vintage speakers. We do the swap and installs together with a dolly and much elbow grease. His speakers have extremely complex setup needs: a 'servo' intermediary and two amps. We set them up, he splits, I'm listening, and my amps are going crazy: shutting down via protection circuitry. On the woofers I have a Class D (early tech, shite) Rotel, and on the electric panels up top a conventional Rotel 200 watt per channel. Within 2 hours the 200w Rotel dies completely. No protection, no nothing. Pull the top off, all fuses are fine. Bad smell in there. Go to bed realizing I may have made a rather sizeable blunder.
- Wednesday: 1pm flight to CT for meetings with our new President, who I'm meeting for first time. Morning: go downstairs to make tea and come within an inch of stepping on a mouse that's still in a mousetrap and crawling around. Pack, leave for airport at 11am as I live nearby. Put suitcase in back and notice the 5lb bag of ice purchased the nite before swimming around behind the drivers side passenger seat in 2 inches of water. No time to deal with this. Throw bag out and head to airport. Get to airport, and on highway big signs 'parking full go to other terminal.' I ignore them, go in, get turned back by security, and head to off airport parking. They are so full it's valet parking only but no time for choices. By now it's 11:30 and I don't get to airport til noon, still needing boarding pass (no printer at home anymore). Fortunately airport is quiet and security line short. During layover in Philly I'm getting error message on iPhone when checking email: password not valid. Was working 2 minutes earlier, now not working. All my work emails have vanished. My hotel info, and my car service to take me from White Plains to CT. I'm walking around outside hoping my driver calls me when I see him with the 'Weinberg' sign driving past, and hop in sweating. Wed eve: meet new President at table w/6 others. Wed eve: Try the hotel's sweatbox office room's pc for 40 minutes to get work email. Nada. after emailing my company's IT support from hotmail from my iphone, re my email problem, they tell me: you pw expired. K it's been 2 years since I've been here and nary a peep about this. On the phone w/India for dunno an hour? and they reset it. Now I'm set.
- Thursday: full day of meetings regarding my business line, go good. Dinner after w/3 dudes. We go to pizza joint / wine bar in nearby Norwalk, and I mention my immunity to spicy food. The owner hears this, says 'be right back' and brings out a slice of pizza totally covered in chili powder or something, and says 'go for it.' I do. I eat it. Afterwards I felt like I was wearing nuclear lipstick. Then one of the boys says let's go to 'the office' for a drink. So we go to the most vile, depressing strip club imaginable. Truly tragic. He stays, us 3 leave, and he tells us the next morn right after we left it was raided by the cops. I talk w/one of my colleagues til almost 3am back at the hotel. He has a 7:30 meeting with the President, mine is at 9am.
- Friday: groggy. Make it in. 3 hour morning meeting. Then so busy I don't eat lunch until 4pm. 2 hours w/Salesforce.com tech support trying to figure out why my account is locked (because I have dual accounts of course, which they tell me is 'not possible.' Trying to change master password on my pc, but needs 2 days since setup and that was yesterday. Also needs to be changed 'on the network' according to IT and the network is in CT. Late flight home, back through Philly. Goes fine. Home at midnight. Almost step on another mouse in my kitchen.
- Saturday: Oh yes...today is my mom's 80th birthday. What have I done? Why, nothing! No card, only one gift, truly pathetic of me. No time for anything. Take her to lunch. Dead tired. Tell her we'll celebrate down the road. Saturday eve: 4 hour listening gathering at fellow audiophile's place. Amazing homemade mac and cheese for me the veg. Vino Verde. Come home, more wine, lots more, and apparently I went on eBay at some point after midnight and bought an amplifier. Never drink and go on eBay. Even kids know that.
- Sunday: today. Spent hours trying to get my stereo to work properly. Pick up spare amp in morn from Audiophile met at gathering. That keeps shutting down. Finally discover one of the line out's on my $1,800 preamp has failed (this took hours to figure out). 3 yr warranty expired 10 months ago. Maybe it just needs new tubes. Mom called tonite to give me pep talk.
- Monday: leave for Chicago tomorrow morn, an in and out. Meeting 4 execs downtown for critical intro pitch. A new week has begun.