Whew, I’ve survived the first week converting the stations here in Manchester, NH. In fact we went “Live” on the new software at 12:05 pm, which is pretty damned good considering that when I did Utica, NY two years ago we didn’t go until something like 3:00 a.m. So now I’ve got the weekend stretching out in front of me: Friday night, Saturday, Sunday… What to do, what to do?

I’m not really the tourist type, so driving over to Salem to check out whatever witchy stuff they have there or going down to Boston to look at the Cheers sign or some kind of sight-seeing stuff like that is right out. I’m kind of at a loss.

There is one obvious option, though: Foxwoods or Mohegan Sun. I did Foxwoods when I was in Providence, RI a few months ago and wanted to hit Mohegan but didn’t get to it. Now I can hear those casinos calling to me … but they’re nearly 3 hours away. Do I really want to spend 6 hours behind the wheel just to play poker?

I don’t know, but I’m enjoying passing the evening here on my hotel room bed considering it between naps.

My company’s network migration woes continue. It’s been back-and-forth for the past two days with assorted executives, IT gurus and know-it-all users mass-mailing conflicting suggestions and fixes to “All,” even as half the company drops off the network and becomes unreachable by email, and everyone in my department is on the road and borderline reachable in the first place. Those who’ve migrated can’t communicate with those who haven’t, vice versa, and everyone’s relying on the broken email chain as the primary avenue of communication.

Me, I haven’t received an email in nearly four hours. Add this to the list of things that make me happy. I’m too busy for this shit right now.

Things that make me happy: Finding a newspaper in my stall in the men’s room.
Things that don’t: Finding the newspaper on the floor.

Ah, yes, it’s that monthly favorite feature, The View From My Hotel Room Window. This is the vista I wake up to here in room 437 in a Hampton Inn somewhere near Manchester, New Hampshire.

I know, I know. I have to pinch myself sometimes to be sure I’m not dreaming.

My company’s computer network is being migrated into the parent network of our parent company. This is causing multiple levels of disruption, but the latest one is cracking my ass up:

From a global email that just came out from one of our IT gurus: The password portion of the migration failed. Everyone?s password in the parent domain is now defaulted to Password1.

Is it just me, or does this create a security breach of epic proportions?

Here’s a pretty cool website for you, www.wheresgeorge.com. Enter the serial numbers of the bills you’re carrying, see where they’ve been before you, watch where they go after you. Neat!

Readers of the ‘stake already know I like to throw my money around. Well, this gives it a new twist. I’ve got a stack of 13 $1 bills I’ve scribbled www.wheresgeorge.com on that are going to start spreading karma in New Hampshire tomorrow.

From this morning’s taxi. Once again, I learned I didn’t need help.

Several entries back I listed one of the reasons I love my knife-fighting wife, and I used the title of a Little Feat song as the entry title. Here, now, the lyrics to that song, every word of which rings true:

That’s Her, She’s Mine
by Paul Barrere, Bill Payne, Sam Clayton

Hey, that’s her, and she’s mine
Look don’t touch ’cause lookin’ I don’t mind
See that girl lookin’ so fine?
Ya that’s her, and she’s mine

Well, that was a long ride home. It’s a good thing I left as early as I did — I picked up another nail on my way home and got another flat tire.

I was flying down the freeway at 80 when suddenly the bike just didn’t feel right. Kinda wiggly-like. I gave the handlebars a quick back-and-forth wobble … and the rear end responded with a big-ass wobble! I barely managed to hold onto her, and at 80 mph it would have been ugly if I hadn’t. I won’t speculate how many times I would have bounced if I’d gone down but at 80 the number would have been high, and you can double it if I had high-sided. But like I said, I managed to hold onto it and didn’t go down. The pucker factor was high, though, and my shorts will need laundering.

After I parked it on the shoulder, I discovered that I’d left my cell phone at home. Great. So I leaned against the divider and waited for some kind of help to arrive. A CHP motorcycle officer rolled up within 10 minutes, called a tow truck for me, recommended a nearby shop where I could get the tire fixed, and then hung around talking motorcycles with me until the truck showed up. He earned rare cop Bonus Points in my book by studiously ignoring the fact that my tags are expired.

$85 later the tow truck dropped me at the motorcycle shop, where $90 later I had a new inner tube installed and was back on the road. Total time elapsed: 3.5 hours.

That’s my third nail this year. I’m getting pretty tired sick of this.

Sigh… I’m wrapping things up here at the office (aka “Watching the clock until it gets late enough to leave early without getting in trouble for leaving too early.”) in preparation for heading out of town tomorrow. This month’s destination? Manchester, NH, home of … well, something New England-y, I’m sure. I’m not looking forward to it; I have a baaaaad feeling about this conversion. Shit is going to go spectacularly wrong while I’m there, I can just feel it.

God, I love my job.