Blue Blue My Halls Are Blue

We were up early this morning taking Man Child to Bball practice and it was a beautiful morning. The sky had the purlpy orange thing working as no painter could ever capture. It was so nice I decided to take Devin's Car to the gas station and fill it up. She drives a Cadillac Escolade with a huge tank that takes 91 Octane, so we tried to rob the local Jack In The Box, but they were closed at 5:52 am.

Instead I waited for someone to pull up to the pump near mine, knocked them unconscious, moved their car and filled up the car. It was early, no one noticed.

By the time I got home, there was still about 15 minutes before the market opened. We can talk more about that later.

Then it was shower time and head over to school to buy more football tickets for the next level of championships for the Santa Margarita Catholic High School Eagles. The line to get tickets was very impressive for high school. We will be playing Mission Viejo High School. It will be sold out and it should be exciting.

We stopped for our bagel fix on the way in the office and we really appreciated the long holiday weekend as we opened the door to the building, it came flashing back to me almost like remembering the first time I drank really sour milk. It was 1973 at the Warner Ave Drive In Movies in Old Huntington Beach and the movie playing was Cinderita and the Golden Bra (Don't Ask) and it was $2.00 a car load night. I was driving my mom's 1970 Ford Maverick. I had pulled one of the spark plugs so it would have cool sound. Didn't run all that well but sounded really cool. While everyone (I think I got about 7 of us with in the trunk) was inhaling popcorn, I decided to have a Milky Way bar and a carton of milk. Thinking back on the moment, it might have been just Ben and I. Then I put the carton to my mouth and in rolled these big chunks of milk, who had been given half a chance could have become cottage cheese. BUT I DIGRESS.

With that same sickening feeling in my throat, there they were, the BLUE BLUE walls of Rancho Santa Margarita Prison Hospital at PADI. Now during the day, I took a casual straw poll of people in the know and to my surprise, only about 10 people have directly complained about the color. 34 people did quit over the Thanksgiving Weekend, 19 people are sick, 4 have temporary blindness, and 1 is on suicide watch, but that is probably just a depression reaction to an overdose of Benadryl.

Now what really annoys me is that someone asked me if I chose the color. When I asked, "Are you serious?", they had heard PADI Worldwide Exec (That would be Gary, our CFO, Drew our President, and I) had chosen and approved the color. Good God, there are people in our building who actually think Gary, Drew and I sit in the board room pondering color samples. How stupid! We don't have time for that when we are busy deciding how far apart the lines in the parking lot must be or just how supple our next years commitment to toilette tissue will be. Come on now we are executives.

Anyway once I made it to my office, It was time to get to work and clean up e-mails, go through the mail, and take care of business. After that, it was time to head out to lunch, but I could not face the stairwell again. The hideous shade of blue kept me sequestered in my office during lunch. Ellen, my trusty assistance extraordinaire bravely went down the stair and brought me back a bagel with peanut butter. I don't know how, but she managed to come back and actually eat lunch after the trek up and down the blue blue hallway. (Personally I think she is closing her eyes or hitting the wine early in the morning?)

We eventually braved the bluish hueish egress of the back stairwell to go run some errands in the afternoon and came back after almost everyone had left. I found several people sitting at their desk afraid to go into the stairwell. Great we got more work out of them. Perhaps there is a bright side to the blue hue.

Tonight we had dog food for dinner (Taco Bell). You ever notice how when you give TB a big order they eventually just give you what they want. Really, I have tried ordering in 3 different languages and if there is more than 4 items its Mexican food pouri. Once you get past item three, the people in the back say, who cares throw some stuff in a tortilla and wrap it up. Now the person on the counter will actually point to it and call it what you ordered, but when you get home, man the joke is on you.

Have you ever seen the back side of a TB cash register? It's like the controls of an old Star Trek Transporter. You keep saying stuff and they are pressing buttons and smiling and then you are done they make up some number like $16.48 and unbeknownst to you, they have been studying their European History and that was the year Switzerland became independent. And that was dinner.

Devin and I enjoyed the healthy delicious meal and watched New Orleans win Monday Night Football. I believe I went 12 and 3, but that was not good enough to be in the money. Buddy Ben may have taken it with 14-2. Nicely done. I think I will stick with the market. Nice Segue Brian.