Well, now, again.

That sure was long. Even with caffeine.

Actually, it wasn't such a bad meeting, although I didn't learn that much new stuff. The nice fellow doing the presentation had himself a hundred PowerPoint slides, but the most interesting were the ones which showed just how...inventive...some roofing contractors can be when it comes to figuring out stuff in the field. It's all well and good to have a hundred slides with verbiage, but good sharp closeups are much more helpful.

He did have a movie in there of an ASTM uplift test which was really cool. The metal roof panels pooched up like the ridges on a Ruffles potato chip and then there was a crosswise buckling at midspan and then FPOOOM!, a whole seam gave way all at once. Tearing stuff up is just real neat.

And thankfully, he was blessedly free of most of the verbal gobbledygook that most salesguys fall into--maybe because he was from Iowa or something--but the only real jolting thing was his decision to pronounce "plethora" as pl&-THOR'-ah, rather than the way I've always heard it, 'ple-th&-r& (imagine the '&" symbols being schwas). Wouldn't have been so bad except he did it twice. Still, not near as bad as the laminated lumber guy from last year who insisted on pronouncing everthing wrong.

Did get to see a fellow I used to work with back at the Bad Place. He left a few years back and went to HealthSouth, and promptly lost his job when the SHTF with the accounting scandal. He looked around a while and never found anything, and started running a picture framing shop, which went bankrupt.

And then his wife lost her job.

Tough times, but he said he just found out he got hired back on at HealthSouth, to replace his boss. Nice raise, too. And his wife managed to find a job as a clinic manager for a local doc-in-the-box, so it has turned out okay for them.

We reminisced a bit about the Bad Place, including the bevy of HealthSouth babes that used to work in the same building before they built the Richard Scrushy Center for the Advanced Study of Richard Scrushy. One in particular, The Blonde Jaguar Goddess (a nomenclature necessary to distinguish her in conversation from The Goddess and from The Blonde Volvo Girl), he said he ran into at some sort of company function and actually managed to get a hug from her. So see, it all turns out okay.

Anyway, back to work now. Hmm? Oh, yes, there was a lunch. A neatly arranged plate of four lunch meat slices, two slices of cheese, a tomato slice, a piece of lettuce, and a basket full of loaf bread. OH, wait--and some slightly soggy potato chips on the plate. And a brownie.

Not quite the same as barbecue, I have to say.
posted by Terry at 3:39:00 PM