Thursday

So last night, I watched the Mariner game, as usual, only this time I spent all 8.5 innings (yes, the Mariners actually won!) focused on the group of seats we sat in Tuesday. I was looking to see if any of Tuesdays peops were back (nope) and who was sitting on our seats. I think I'll never be able to see that close up of right handed hitters the same way again. It dawned on me this morning that chances are good ljtourist might not be here during the summer again and even more likely, if he is, it will be on a much tighter schedule so I need to make sure I convince him to do the Diamond Club one more time this season... Although maybe going again would be tempting fate and it won't be as wonderful... nah.

This morning's swim was different. My routine is to get into the pool and kick off and start swimming. I aim for an hour and 5 or 10 minutes. I usually check the clock once or twice. But, if there are other swimmers I don't have to stop and check the clock at all. Most other swimmers go for 20 or 30 minutes - a few go for 45ish. There's a guy who swims on Sundays who goes for 50. I can keep an eye on their comings and goings without even stopping so they become my clock. But today, when I got there another guy I'd seen only once before was also starting. It was very clear he was going for more than 30 minutes so I just relaxed and told myself I'd check the clock when he got out. But he didn't get out. Finally, I stopped and looked at the clock and I'd been going 65 minutes. Ha. Joke's on me. He was still going when I left for the shower.

The new Android - the beta - has a nice number of cool little features and one nasty surprise. It's far more beta-y than the last one. I put Android Nugat on my phone and a tablet when it was first released as beta and never had an issue. But this one has some sneezes - it keeps trying to play one Google Music song and I've not even opened Google Music sine I upgraded. But it has a lot of little gifts. The settings are easier to get to and much more intuitively arranged. But the reason I might not keep the beta is Android Pay. Although the upgrade notes say that Android Pay will work, when you click on it, it says that it is incompatible with the developers edition of the operating system that I'm using. This is not good. I love beeping my phone for payment. So now I'm wrestling with keep or go back... So far it's a standoff.

Today is sewing. Tomorrow I have errands to run so today I'm not going anywhere - at least in the car. I may take a walk around the block. I do need to hit up the ATM but otherwise, I'll be here, in the house and likely at the sewing machine.

Continued

The Charlotte IBM plant was a big draw - particularly from IBM locations in the northeast. The weather was nice and the housing prices were reasonable and the schools were good. So, the plant ended up with a lot of Yankees. And people liked it and so wanted to stay.

The Rochester IBM plant employees were pretty much all Minnesotans. And they didn't so much want to stay as refused to leave. So new people especially 'foreigners' were kind of rare and did not meld into the population seamlessly.

The new head of the plant - a rare transplant and from the northeast - needed help getting his message across internally and externally. He would normally have gone to his communications department for the help but he didn't like them. So he tweaked the system to get his own communications person.

And that was the job I was interviewing for. It turned out both the job and the interview were kind of like trying to get a job with the wrong side of a warring faction. That's a little strong but not terribly far off.

He wanted someone who was not afraid to stick his or her neck out and take chances and go against the way it's always been done and maybe take a career risk or two (or twenty as it turned out). He needed that person to talk to press, customers, employees, and to write speeches and presentations, and generally be his personal communications expert. And agree to move to a tiny town in a section of the country where 17 below zero wasn't particularly unusual. (As one who appreciates cold weather, loves snow and wanted to get out of the northeast and far away from an ex boyfriend, I had that last bit covered in spades.)

We hit it off from the first minute we met. We talked for the longest time. Towards the end of that day, he had a meeting with some top employees to explain why they couldn't go down the road they had planned to with one particular product. I offered to draft up some remarks/phrasing for him to use at the meeting. I spent the afternoon doing just that.

I stood in the back of the room while he delivered my words without even very many changes and the message was received better than he expected. It was so gratifying. And then he asked me to come work for him. And I said I'd be delighted.

I had two weeks to wrap up my work in the Real Estate division, find a place to live in Minnesota, pack up and move and get to work. I started work on October 15 that year and October 15 brought the first snow of that year. I took that as a very good omen and so it turned out to be.

To Be Continued

My tweets

• Wed, 12:14: Just enrolled in Android O. Never let it be said that I make decisions slowly and… https://t.co/bzgf4Kt4aM
• Wed, 14:52: And now O is downloading to my phone. Google was ready with this sucker!
• Wed, 20:21: WHAT????? Android Pay won't work with Android O???? That's a show stopper for me.
• Wed, 20:21: Somebody might have mentioned this. What else did they neglect to tell us? https://t.co/azwrwUTCFj

Oh yeah!

So the first shirt I made off the new pattern - the one white with green chicks on it one - was fine. But the one I made today is Fine And Dandy. It not only fits me perfectly, it is very comfortable. I rarely wear raglan sleeves because I feel like it makes my narrow shoulders look more narrow (and, so, make my already wide hips look way more wide) so I'd forgotten how comfy that sleeve fitting is.

I have some non knit fabric that I'm pretty sure will work with this pattern as long as the sleeves are knit. But then, I got a whole new idea in my head that I'm very excited about... a patchwork front and back with knit sleeves. Stay tuned.

In other news, I fiddled and fiddled with my phone to get Android Pay back and finally managed to do it. And then I read comments by the Android team made at the same time saying they fixed the problem. Yeah, right. I fixed it. Myself. You can take credit but I know it was me. Regardless, I now feel way better about this beta.

Baseball tonight with bear knitting. But first I need to go clean up the sewing room and then I think I may just got walk around the block.