The Weekend is Almost Here

I really need the weekend to rest a bit as well as plan for my trip next Friday. I have not done anything yet to plan yet but that is not a major issue.

My wife and I met at the Hong Kong Palace last night for dinner. She had a coupon for 50% one entree so we were both able to get 2 large meals (which equates into lunch for both of us today) and drinks fro $20. Fits into the budget nicely. The food was pretty good although the Sesame Beef was a bit too sweet for my taste. My wife got her old stand by, combination lo mien and she was not disappointed.

We got home fat and happy (after a quick trip to Kroger to get milk, yogurt, bananas, cider, and some frozen stuff to keep on hand for quick meals) and after walking the dogs, we settled down to watch some TV. My wife watched the taped epi's of Tuesday's "Law and Order" (CI and SVU) while I watched an old episode of "Brimstone" Good show, in a creepy way.

Got done with that and hit the hay. I was sneezing horribly from allergies, so I took a Claritin and it seemed to help some. However, when I woke up this morning, my sinuses were killing me and with them draining, my stomach was very upset. It has calmed down now, but it is still a little woozy and my head still aches. Yes, I have taken some Tylenol Sinus, but it will take a while to work.

I received confirmation on what my group will be doing. I will still have to do "site specific" dispatch as well as escalation mgmt, incident mgmt, and support for a couple of tools. No one on the team is thrilled about this because it takes several non-related items and puts them in a group of three techs. The tool support is 8x5, incident mgmt is 8x5 with the three of us rotating on call after business hours, and the escalation mgmt is 8x5, with the three of us rotating on call after business hours. Now if we will either be on call ever 2 weeks or every 3 weeks, depending if we are going to do both incident and escalation mgmt at the same time. The guys I will be working with say they tried both ways in the past and it did not work well either way. The current escalation mgr is being laid off and my boss wants to integrate this into the incident mgmt group. Since no one will be taking over my current duties, I believe that I am supposed to continue doing them as well, PLUS doing project work. Needless to say, I am not very happy with this arrangement. However I will not complain about it. I will work to the best of my abilities. I forgot to add that our group will take over the problem mgmt reporting function for the America's. I think that we report to 4-5 different people when you take all these jobs and put them in one group. Also, a large part of what I do will be after hours, so on call becomes an issue. We are *required* to make many international calls and all I have is a mobile phone. Getting reimbursed may get tricky.

More later. I have things to do!