MattLoter wrote:


If by morning, you mean around 3am, I might consider it. LOLJK.

I think both Rob (one of the TI3ers) and Louise (if she comes this year) both run/work out every morning. You might try to hook up with them. They would probably also know other people who do the same.

THE EAGLE HAS LANDED....and he resides in Rm 511.

I have been out and bought some Maker's Mark, Glenlivet and a bottle of Fat Bastard (seems appropriate).

I am ready to start AND I have an internet connection, so Spain will be proceeding with the beating up of the sweaty Ottoman bastards in VQ. Dave's right...going into a liquor store here is like a candy store when you were a kid. I want to DRINK IT ALL....

Hopefully, SuperflyTNT can make it here some time. Expect to see a fat drunk British guy at the bar reading or leering at passersby. With my new glasses, I look a bit like a sex offender who needs to report to the police every week or maybe one of those 'if you see this man in the area please call 911 immediately and do not approach' or a serial masturbator or all three.

Anyway, drinking is so much fun especially with 'proper' alcohol and no bastards from the Embassy to impress. When I die I will be auctioning slices of my liver off on ebay to sell as chamois leather for cleaning the car.

A buddy and I will be rolling into Lancaster Thursday night. I haven't signed up for any tournaments yet. I'm not sure if I will as it sounds like open gaming will suffice. Never been to one of these deals before so I guess we'll see. I've never played Here I stand or TI:3 and I'd love to try both while I'm there if any of y'all are down. Spacemen vs. Aliens and BSG would be awesome too. Looking forward to seeing y'all again and meeting some new folks.

My leave has been cancelled thanks to the USAF extending the deadlines on my current proposal. This will be the 4th consecutive year I've had my WBC trip cut short by work (and the first killed altogether...). Wish I could make it, but I can't. Have a drink for me gang...

Dogmatix wrote:


"Proposal Purgatory" is what one of my associates used to call that. Your company has you running around like an idiot changing one word here and two words there for six weeks and when the deadline is due to bring relief it gets extended. Three more weeks of changing one word here and two words there.

S.

Sagrilarus wrote:


Eh. I do this for a living (been a full-time proposal volume lead and now overall prop manager for a dozen+ years now), so it's expected and normally something I can just schedule and work around. Problem I'm having on this one is that it's an altogether new line of business (which is tough to find for a company with $12 billion in annual revenues) and it's got every level of management up to and including the "C-suite" sitting in on every meeting and every review. The fucking thing has actually been done, including 99% of the pricing, for over a week but GOD FORBID I not look as worried as the rest of the folks do about this bid. So, yea, dropping off the grid for 3 days to go send little cardboard squares [including some units these idiots served in] to their untimely deaths would likely be seen as a Career Limiting Move [CLM]. So, now I wander the halls saying "Yep, we've incorporated your inputs where appropriate" to a lot of guys while desperately trying to keep them from actually touching--and thus fucking-up--my books.

The damn thing is going to be evaluated "Lowest Price, Technically Acceptable", so 90% of the "executive guidance" I've received from these folks has been ignored or, at best, heavily modified in order to keep our final price down. (For those who don't know, all those jokes about "work done by the lowest bidder" are, for the most part, BS for just about everything involving an actual human. Until very recently, the *vast* majority of US federal contracting dollars are doled out on a "best value" basis. The current shift to buying services at lowest price, like they buy, say, pencils, washers, and petro products, has turned the world upside down for a lot of folks.).

Now, instead of getting 2.5 days off this week, I'm going to end up taking the last 2.5 *weeks* in August in order to avoid working the next prop this same crowd has already in the pipeline. They really shouldn't have objected to my time off on this one as I'm pretty sure they're going to *hate* the guy who is going to take my place on the next one.

Fuck me. The USAF just extended this bloody bid yet again. I could have come up today. I'm going to try to get up there for a day this week now since my bid is well and truly done and now I'm just waiting for the friggin' clock to run out....

Huh. Who are they holding the bid open for?

S.

Sagrilarus wrote:


I get the impression this is likely a "command approval tabled by surf and sand" situation. Summertime generally means that no fewer than two in the authorization/approval food-chain are on leave at any given time. I've had bids get extended from late June to September in 10-day increments due to someone finding out only well after releasing an RFP that his entire chain of command had overlapping leave and TDY schedules, which eliminated any hope of getting the necessary command sign-off for months. And, of course, the gov't fiscal year ends in September, which also grinds all contracting to a halt...

I'm actually a bit worried that this is going to be my problem here. If they don't nail down the closing date soon, they're going to run face-first into the hell of GFY closeout and we're all screwed.

CU there. (Thursday-Sunday)