Thursday night

Let's see...

Had a lovely dinner at Masala Art - an Indian restaraunt near my work. They feature interestingly spiced Indian dishes from all over India (and you know Indian geek that I am, I really mean that), and they tend to use better quality spices in a not so traditional arrangement. Some love it, some hate it. I love it. They also have a pretty great bartender, so I like sitting at the bar and shooting the shit with him and the waiters. Thursday seems to feature two pretty clever waiters, and then a mix of not so talktative folks, so it's a good time.

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Whee!

Remember that presentation? The one I was working my ass off to write a spiffy document for? Yeah, well, after being delayed an additional week by the customer, it now sounds like they can't make it up at all. So... since we have to deliver this contractually... we will deliver long distance! Yep. My happy little presentation will be given over either telephone - or - get this - video conference!

Yep. G.D. spent I don't know how much money to make a really swanky video conference room/media center. It's got flat screens, projectors, white boards, mikes, video cameras from several angles, and a podium full of all sorts of complicated looking stuff, Internet and power hookups for both the internal LAN and for the regular Net. We must have spent a mint. It's not classified - it's something available for all projects. I'm pretty impressed. Sometimes we can be so cheap (the 1st stall bathroom door hasn't worked properly in 3 years), and sometimes we spend an enormous amount of money being so boring (we repaint the walls an astoundingly boring shade of peach/beige every 3 months) - but this time we made something pretty dead sexy. (yes, I am a geek, a video conference room is sexy)

Anyway, I, apparently, may get to present my paper by video conference. How wild. I have certainly been video taped before, but not like this... talking, saying stuff of intellectual value. On camera. It's not quite stage fright, but I'm actually a little nervous.

It does, however, beat the alternative - sending them slides and doing this by telephone. Blech. Then I won't be able to make any of my keen hand gestures (my boss is mocking me... apparently there's a little abhinaya in my technical presentation style).

Good thing I suggested I make slides today. My boss said "hmm... that's a good idea, we'll need those, thanks for remembering". Apparently I'm out of the hot seat as the Bad Monkey - if he doesn't remember key things I should be doing. It's not very reassuring that the only person on the project who should be more aware of schedules and deliverables than me is not keeping tabs on it...

On the good side - this is me caring. Actually caring about my job. That's a good sign.