Life Gives A Hug

From the rubble of my work life comes a welcome release. Today I got an acceptance. In my small effort to write fiction I got my latest story accepted for publication. It’s going to be in the June issue of Chick Flicks magazine. I’ll post a link to it in my side bar publication list when it goes live.

It was exciting to get the email today. When I opened it I was looking for something like thanks but no thanks. Instead what I got was “we absolutely loved your story and will publish it in our June fifteenth issue”. I have to say that after the recent UniBlab incident I was happy to receive this news.

I know in the larger picture it’s not that big a deal but in my small world, at this particular moment, it’s quite welcome.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, thanks, I needed that

UniBlab, Respond

Bear in mind my last post was made on that day, the Milestone Day. I was trying to come down off the ride of the past few days and try and relax. We had put it together and then powered it up. More than once even. Each time the little lights came on and we were happy. We all went home a little late but happy with the results. We even commented to one another how it was nice to turn on something for the very first time and have no smoke. We were pleased with ourselves.

The next morning I arrived, went to get my coffee, and came back to see the other two already tearing apart the top half of our creation. Apparently while I was gone they had it powered up and something came in contact with something else and a wire started melting. So they tore it down to find the problem and decided to just disconnect that melted portion and just not use it for the meeting.

I neglected to mention that at nine there was the Milestone Meeting whereby we would roll the alpha in and show it off in all its geeky coolness to the rest of the team. That was what I was so excited about when I wrote my last post. I figured that there would be applause and fanfare that would end up embarrassing us in its length and intensity.

Okay, back to our three heroes. By ten of nine we had it powered up without anything melting. By five of we had it all reassembled and ready for show and tell. At nine I was rolling the little bugger in the conference room. It all started so well. Me and Bull demonstrated the unpacking and setting up. Oo look how neat and convenient. Click, snap, pop, okay there’s quite a lot of these but it’s secure, snap, unlatch and presto, all setup. People were on board so far.

Mistress Murphy can be a cold hearted bitch. We took questions about the ease of setup for a bit then moved on to the power up. On come the pretty lights and a few oos and ahs. From where I was sitting I could see a wisp of smoke coming up out of the front panel. “Shut it down there’s smoke shut it down there’s smoke…” I said maybe more times than I needed to.

I hadn’t even finished one cup of coffee yet and already my day was shit. Now I had to sit through an hour and a half more of what would turn into the meeting from hell. My cup of coffee didn’t even last through half of it. The purpose of the meeting was to decide if this unit inspired everyone to want to go ahead and build the next two and move towards full production. Having smoke come out of the alpha prototype doesn’t really help that cause.

That being said, (a favorite saying at my company) we’re going ahead with the next two units, same as the first. Minus the smoke of course.

Enter The UniBlab 4000

So today was a milestone. Today was the day that the alpha prototype for the UB4K was scheduled to be assembled to the point where the pretty lights would light up. And just as planned the pretty lights came on. Okay, not at first. They came on after a bit of trouble shooting. But they eventually came on. When I come to a milestone like this I find it’s my office that’s the real victim.



That’s what my sty looks like from door number one after UB4K was rolled out all put together.



And that’s the view from door number two. If the picture was bigger you might see, on the top shelf, the real human skull wearing a sweat band.

Oh it’s not over. Not even close. Now I get to move all the holes that I put in the wrong place. Then we can build numbers two and three. I wonder what those numbers are in greek.