Random Bits of Gratitude

Chapel Hill Snowman
January 18, 2013

Three Bits o' Gratitude

1. A Dirty, Unexpected Snowman
I went to bed with dire predictions of awakening to a potential snow accumulation of up to three inches. I awoke, instead, to no snow in our neighborhood. Amongst other things, this meant I wasn't being granted a snow day from werk.

I didn't even see snow until I was about halfway to werk on the bus.

Walking across campus I saw only a light dusting of the white stuff. I was pretty impressed, then, to see that some midnight students had managed to roll together enough snow to make an actual snowman.

By late afternoon he had lost about half of his weight, but the sight of him on the cold, blustery walk to werk made me smile.

2. Jive T. Robot
Co-werker Jive T. Robot stops by my office about once a day. He's the only person who doesn't come by with a computer problem -- he comes by because we enjoy talking to one another and it's less conspicuous for him to come see me than it is for me to go find him. I has probably been close to 30 years since I worked with someone who laugh as much with at werk. We're equally impressed with the other's knowledge of obscure cultural trivia and ability to make us laugh.

3. James Earl
Jim is another co-werker. He's my networking guy and someone I've fought to keep on my team. He's a retired IBM Mainframer with a lot of great stories, knowledge of computers and networks, and somehow seems to know everyone (or at least someone who knows everyone he doesn't know but needs to find at the time).

Our car is having serious troubles and, as part of that, I need to recharge the battery. He had mentioned charging a battery in his workshop yesterday so I called him today to see if I could borrow it for the weekend. It turns out the charger he had wasn't strong enough to do my car battery, so he went out and bought a new, stronger charger to lend to me. "I was looking for an excuse to get one anyway," he told me, sheepishly.

With friends like this, I just might make it in this world.