Those Martins

I woke up around 6:30a and actually spent most of my time getting ready for work. Thursdays are also Christine’s day to work at the pharmacy. I take Esther over to a babysitter on my own way to work. Today, some friends from Oregon were going to watch her. I was ready to leave for work by 8:30a but Esther decided to take a nice, long morning nap. She finally woke up around 9:00a. I dropped her off at the sitter’s, and made it into the office by 9:35a.

I had a general blizzard of issues come at me as soon as I checked my e-mail. I ended up re-prioritizing my to-do list. There’s no way I was going to get to everything originally scheduled for “This Week”. Life granted me a bit of reprieve, when my trainer e-mailed to say that class wouldn’t start until 1:30p (instead of the original 1:00p).

Class went well this afternoon. We had to create some hierarchical rules for routing lab results to the people. The system will use the first — and only the first — matching rule that it finds. It’s very important that the rules are ordered from most specific to least specific. If not, some people might never get the results that they were expecting to get. The practice exercises for that section were a bit challenging. But the rest of the day was pretty easy to compensate.

I started for Oregon at 5:00p, to retrieve Esther from the sitter’s. I stopped at home first to drop off my work gear and print out directions to Babe’s. I had Esther picked up and loaded up by 5:50p. We ran into a spot of traffic driving to Babe’s, so we didn’t arrive until 6:20p. I drove past the parking lot to find that early arrivals had packed it beyond full. They had also filled up the surrounding parking lots and side streets. I found a mostly empty lot attached to a corporate park about 2 blocks away. Esther and I walked back to the bar, after bundling up against the cold.

Mike and Alicia had arrived early, but not early enough to get a table. They signed the waiting list for a table, but that ultimately proved fruitless. The bar was standing room only. People were packed in every nook and cranny of the building. The wait staff had a constant struggle just to carry food and drinks through the facility. Because there was nowhere to sit, I had to hold Esther and place her diaper bag between my feet.

Christine arrived around 7:00p. She was pretty hungry after a full day at work. Rather than having her and Esther stay, hoping to get food, I sent them home. It turned out to be a good decision: I didn’t get any food until after 9:30p.

I spent the next 2.5 hours standing. I also spent the next 2.5 hours watching the Packers - Cowboys game, so it wasn’t all bad. As expected, it was a bit of a dogfight. Injuries proved to be decisive. The Packers were without their starting right corner (Charles Woodson), backup right corner (Aaron Rouse), and pass-rushing defensive end (Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila). That allowed the Cowboys’ receivers to catch more passes and prevent the Packers from putting a lot of pressure on Tony Romo.

To cap things off, Brett Favre was injured midway through the second quarter and never returned to the game. Backup quarterback Aaron Rodgers entered the game for the first real playing time of his three-year career. One could almost hear the crowd deflate as they watched Rodgers come onto the field. The Packers were already trailing by 10 points and things did not seem to be looking up. Rodgers quickly showed, however, that he’s been putting his limited practice time to good use. He was able to complete passes, find open receivers, run for first downs, and generally do a pretty good job of leading the offensive. He finished the night having passed 18/26 for 201 yards and a touchdown. Not bad at all! (And better, it should be noted, than Brett Favre’s 5/14 for 56 yards and two interceptions.)

Ultimately, it was a losing effort. Even Rodger’s heroics couldn’t overcome the hole that the Packers put themselves into through injuries and stupid penalties. The final score was 37-27, Dallas. The Packers are now 10-2.

I stayed at Babe’s until the bitter end, then sprinted for the warmth of my car. I finally came home for good at 11:00p and was in bed by 11:30p. No late night reading for me! Just some short conversation with Christine before turning out the lights.