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Michael's Diary -- 2001-2003 Archive   3.03.2001   Today was the end of a bitter and dire week. G.'s work life too was a nuisance. So we decided to do something fun tonight to lift our spirits: we went to Charlie Trotter's new takeout joint on Fullerton. If you don't know who Charlie Trotter is, he is a world-renowned chef, whose restaurant is a legend here in Chicago. A very inventive and cool cat. Anyway, you can learn more about him by clicking his name. He has, basically, an upscale dinner-to-go spot complete with excellent wine program. G and I indulged ourselves with a very nice three-course spread and a bottle of good, affordable wine. This food was really and truly excellent -- sourdough bread flown in from California, and worth it, potato and leek soup, a seviche of snapper, potato crisps, a lobster tail, a three-potato salad (with purple potatoes even!), a Maytag blue cheese polenta, and slice beef tenderloin. Followed by tea and a sugar-dusted corn cake and half a brownie. Diet food? Not really. But it did make up for a lot of misery this week. I am dedicating tomorrow to drowning my/our sorrows at the conveniently scheduled Real Ale Festival conveniently located down the street at the brewery. 150 or so cask-conditioned ales from around the world. Truly a feast for a beer lover, especially one with a lot of sorrows to drown. Yes, tonight and tomorrow are a break from worrying about What's Next. Sunday the resume-blasting resumes and Monday/Tuesday we will learn hard details about our fate at the office -- severance, etc. Tonight's post-meal viewing was Woody Allen's Small Time Crooks. G and I -- to our surprise -- found this movie to be unwatchably dopey and bad. I hate to say it about a Woody Allen picture, but this movie was horribly lame. Poor acting, especially by Ms. Ullman, and a leaden script by Woody. After this, the ruthlessly unfunny Deconstructing Harry and Everyone Says I Love You, which I found stupefying, I have pretty much lost faith in Woody. Try to think of the last truly great film he's made. Crimes & Misdemeanors, I suppose. 11 years ago. 12:36 AM 3.02.2001   Today, I was very tired. That's because yesterday was a really long day. Got downtown early to meet Prospective Customer with my boss and inform him about our unfortunate predicament. He took it well and was very supportive. There may be a chance to salvage the gig for other areas of the company. Then, to the office, where I fired out resumes. There is an undercurrent of denial in our office. Mostly this is because no severance, unemployment, or even closing date questions have been resolved. There is therefore this weird need to make some kind of attempt to make business go as usual. This means I am on the calendar to actually teach a class. A challenge indeed it will be to muster up the necessary energy and enthusiasm fo teaching our company's methodology give my current level of anger with the situation. Perhaps something will get sorted out. I really want to do whatever I can to minimize the beating my boss will take over this --- he is as fine a person as I've known in the business. I split at 4:00 as I was fortunate enough to have a 5:00 appointment at Northwestern University, where I met with a great and generous person whom I just might end up working for. It was a balm to my soul to have a job interview timed out in this fashion go well. It lasted 2 1/2 hours! I had just enough time to zip home, give a quick call to my folks, and then hop in the car to pick up G at school. We stopped for a bite on the way home and I watched some cartoons. Today I was beat so I slept in. Got in to the office late and resumed the job search. Pickin's a little more slim today for the highly targeted job I'm searching for. Persistence will pay off as it always does. I came home and hung with G. She went to her girls' night out but apparently all the girls stayed in as she came right back. I went bowling. My bowling was sucky, but strangely enough two of the guys also had their employment rug unexpectedly pulled out from under them on Tuesday! An ill wind was blowing indeed. Now home, where scanning the TV channels as I ate my late-night steak burrito dinner I noticed that Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha was on. I have wanted to see this movie for 20 years and something has always screwed it up. I finally found a rental copy and rented it, but the tape was a mess and the sound was awful, so it was unwatchable. I have tape rollling on it now so at last I will see it. Now it's sleepytime. More surfin' tomorrow. 1:11 AM 2.28.2001   I am pained to notice, as I sign off, that one of the little pin-up girls advertised on the IMDB ads in the corner has chosen as her stage name "Charisma Carpenter." At least I hope, giving her parents credit, that they didn't actually name her "Charisma." That has to be the all-time dumbest first name ever. 1:46 AM   Tired, now, and sleepy too. A long time coming tonight after a not-exactly-banner-day. Today my boss's boss came to visit and to inform him that our office would no longer be funded by the home base in the Netherlands. Effectively, we are closing up shop, date and specific arrangements to be determined but within the next couple of months. This is an incontrovertible decision, apparently. Oddly enough I just made the (cryptically referred-to below) decision last night to go ahead and pursue other options, just in case. So today's news wasn't a complete shock; business has been slow, and this was a definite possibility in all our minds. I honestly didn't expect it, though; nor did my boss. I did expect an ultimatum of some kind but I didn't expect a final decision to be handed down. Prospective customer will have a disappointing and awkward meeting with us tomorrow. Two months of serious business development on my part come to naught. Well enough of that for now. "Turn a disadvantage to your advantage" is an aphorism I try to live by. In this case, I have an opportunity to completely reinvent myself professionally and take advantage of the energy that can generate. From here until then it's full-time job search. I trust this makes some of my cryptic remarks and generally glum demeanor of late a little more sensible. I feel awful for my boss. But he will do OK. I came home after a few sullen and depressing drinks with my (soon-to-be-ex-) coworkers. G came home a little later and we talked for a while. Had a brief shell-shocked conversation with Mom on the phone, then went out for comfort food at a nice little local Italian restaurant and a little Ben & Jerry's afterwards. Mel Brooks' work of genius The Producers was on, which was a treat and provided much-needed laughs. The scene in which the camera shows a shot of the stupefied audience immediately after the big "Springtime for Hitler" opening number looked a lot like the faces of our staff today after the boss' announcement. I am up so late because I stumbled on the half of The Green Mile I hadn't seen again. I really like that movie although many an IMDB critic seems to disagree. I thought it was perhaps a little long, but an adult story which was really a strong anti-death penalty statement. Much more subtle in many ways than a lot of people give it credit for. The line where Tom Hanks as Paul talks to John Coffey about what Paul is suposed to tell God at his final judgment, when God asks why Paul killed one of His miracles -- I think most people here are thinking of the John Coffey as the miracle because of his miraculous powers. I think, really, the point is, we are all God's miracles. Why are so many people who are opposed to the abortion in favor of the death penalty, and vice versa? Is life sacred, or not? There doesn't seem, to me, to be a whole lot of middle ground. One can argue that the difference is that one human life, in the death penalty case, definitely, recognizably exists; the other is not viable human life or recognizable as a viable human being. Well, not an issue I am liable to sort out here but it makes you think. Tired nature's sweet restorer, here I come. Tomorrow is a fresh start. 1:43 AM 2.27.2001   Well, as mentioned, the boss's boss is here this week, and the financial controller. Ordinarily this would not be a big deal but there have been some management changes -- a new broom -- what will be swept clean? He will be here tomorrow; the financial dude was at the office today. A little tension in the air. Prospective Customer called, anxious to nail a few details before signing on. We'll have an appointment later in the week. Meanwhile on the personal career side, as Mao said, a thousand flowers bloom, a hundred schools contend. I am giving myself permission to be open-minded toward several potential, if not yet available, futures. And I have had some insights into exactly the nature of what I want to do, career-wise. I hate to have to be so cryptic but in a public forum like this I must. A low-impact day at the office. Got a little organized, scored some expensive tickets to see one of my very few personal heroes, Mark Knopfler, up in Milwaukee in May. He is supposed to be playing Chicago but nothing is offical yet. Came home via the dry cleaners and did my part in the laundry challenge -- how two people generate as much laundry as we do is a puzzler for the ages. Probably contradicts a law of thermodynamics. The worked some more on "Cliffs of Moher" and added some strings and an ambient guitar loop, then mixed down a rough mix to MiniDisc. I have to get some sort of patch cable thingy put together or at least a work table. All these cords with little desk space will make me nuts. Was a little late picking up G and her friend from school. G and I stopped for burgers on the way home. I have been definitely backsliding on the food thing. I can honestly say that a few weeks ago I was solidly making the right food choices most of the time. It's 50/50 right now. Part of this is because of a lack of focus, some distraction, anxiety, and so on. The commitments I made were simple and straightforward. To be honest, many of them are a wreck. This should be a useful pointer to my "blind spot" and a useful generator of ideas for working with myself. But to tell you the truth most of my mental energy has been focused on solving other, more pressing, more immediate issues. Glad I wrote this much about it though -- that blind spot thing has got me thinkin'. 12:52 AM 2.26.2001   This is the end of one of the laziest weekends in Sheehan history. A combination of a general brown study, appalling weather (a constant, pissing drizzle all day yesterday which made everything seem damp, filthy and cold; gale-force winds today) combined to completely de-motivate both of us. G dutifully worked away on her schoolwork. I mostly dicked around. To tell you the truth I couldn't really tell you what the hell I did in detail. But here's a try. First of all, overslept badly on Friday. Went to DisneyQuest and met David and Suzanne. Had a lot of fun and made many observations. The "show quality" is extremely lacking in many areas (apparently faulty VR helmets held together with binder clips, absolutely filthy doorways and walls in the exit hallway), while it is excellent in others. Some attractions seem very poorly maintained. Others are outdated and need a major facelift. Others, such as the new Pirates of the Caribbean virtual game, are outstanding. Overall, it was fun and well worth the money. However, it is lacking in that Disney "sparkle." The entrance is great, and the guy working the entry portal had the Disney thing happening very effectively. However, to check your coat, you had to go back outside the environment after entering, which kind of spoiled the entry effect. But there doesn't seem to be anything really consistent thematically. There is also a big lack of the standard Disney characters, such as Mickey etc. The ambience is much more dark than I like Disney stuff to be. More damaging to the "Disneyness" is the appalling quality of the service. Even on a slow Friday afternoon almost all of the cast members were sullen, slow, inefficient, bored, and what's worse, boring. No involvement at all and nothing like the friendliness of the park CM's. Anyway, we were there for 7 hours or so and could have stayed longer. My feet were killing me and we were kind of tired, so I called G and we met at Goose for a couple of beers and a burger. Then home. Yesterday G did schoolwork while I worked on a little Mike Oldfield-inspired celtic melody on my multitrack software. It is coming along very nicely! It's the first time I have ever been pleased by a track I laid down. I hope to complete it by St. Patrick's Day as it is a little Celtic melody that I have named "The Cliffs of Moher." I will post a link to it when I finally get it done. Then we watched, urggh, Gladiator on pay-per-view. What absolute pants this film is. Rarely have digital effects looked more, well, digital. And Oliver Reed's swansong as Mediocrus (or whatever his name is) is really guffaw-inducing. There were moments of this film that had us both laughing out loud. Russell Crowe is a good actor -- I like him -- but Olivier couldn't have made this overlong, pompous, windy screenplay watchable. It is so melodramatic and hokey and yet has pretention to so much more -- and is thus fodder for laughs. This movie is not in the same class as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or indeed any of the other films nominated for Best Picture (I can't speak for Erin Brockovich) by orders of magnitude. If Gladiator wins Best Picture I will regurgitate. This is the first year in a long time that I have actually given a crap about the Oscars because there is a film I am actually passionate about. It's been a while! Today, slept late. Went for Irish breakfast at the pub down the street. Both of us just kind of grim and exasperated by winter, February in particular, and certain work-life issues. Had a good breakfast though. And some laughs as we always do. Came home and worked on my music some more while G worked on her homework. Reheated last night's Chinese leftovers for tonight's supper and did some research on the web after watching the X-Files, which I knew entirely too much about before seeing it. Watched some of the extras on the Jurassic Park DVD, and then did a little more research. Now I am going to bed. Our boss's boss will be in the office this week. Gotta make sure it's looking good. 1:26 AM