Today I saw my first hairy tire. I'd imagine I'm probably the only person in the world who didn't know that some jeeps have hairy tires but I assure you that the sight came as a great shock to me.

Maybe all cars can have hairy tires, I don't know. But I do know that there's a jeep in our parking lot here at the office that has a hairy spare tire.

It was actually sort of gross to look at. Like some kind of alien growth. Little hairy fronds sticking out all over.

Ick.

One day last week I was sitting here peacefully surfing the web before anyone else got into the office and I heard this humongous crash from the street. I wondered what kind of accident made a sound like a truck falling over and boogied over to the window to check it out. To my amazement, I discovered that a traffic signal pole had fallen over right into the street. Fortunately no one was driving under it at the time.

Still. Things like that shouldn't be allowed to happen, should they? It frightened me.

By the next morning the ever-efficient City of Denver had securely (one hopes) rebolted the pole to its base and thus ends another pointless anecdote.

I also saw someone wandering down the street with a sleeping bag. No backpack or anything. Just a sleeping bag that had a convenient carrying handle. I'd have stopped and asked her why such a nicely dressed woman was carrying a brown sleeping bag down the street but it seemed a little intrusive. Also I know that whatever the real reason was, it would have been much less than the ten or fifteen reasons I came up with for why a polished, professional looking woman would want to carry a brown, nylon sleeping bag at all times.

For instance, it should surprise no one to hear that, Cold War relic than I am, I instantly decided she was smuggling some kind of delicate instrumentation up to the suite of the Kindly But Mysterious Russian Tenants.

You'll be relieved to hear that Pointless Anecdote #2 is now over.

Alvin and the Chipmunk are the guys I work with. So far, there are only three of us in the company and the Chipmunk lives in another state.

Alvin and the Chipmunk were on the road for most of last week, Alvin is gone from today until the end of this week, and if I have anything to say about it, they're going to spend most of the next three weeks on the road as well.

No, I don't dislike them, but after two months of pressure, I've finally gotten a little momentum going on our crucial pilot project and I don't intend to let it all slip away just because the two of them think they're entitled to lives or something. No matter what Alvin says I remain convinced that his children won't actually forget what he looks like in four short weeks.

Let's face it, when they hired me, they said they needed someone to take charge and make sure the things that need to be done got done. They hired me because the person who referred me to them said I was pushy.

A certain family member with whom I shared that bit of information fell off of her chair laughing. In spite of possibly seeming a bit cranky when I write on-line, I'm not actually known (to my family) as a person with a backbone. Or, you know, any kind of firmness of personality. (Fandom seems to bring out a part of my personality I never even knew existed. But that's a different topic.)

When these guys hired me, sources that shall remain nameless told me that Alvin was a big pussycat and that the Chipmunk was a scatterbrain who meant well but who probably wouldn't be much use. Turns out that the Chipmunk, while a bit over committed on time, is really an excellent sales person while Alvin is usually about thirty seconds from going postal on someone. People tell you lies when they want you to come and work with them, don't they?

Alvin doesn't go postal on me, though.

I assume he doesn't realize how much of my time during the day is spent answering personal e-mail and writing blog entries or he might not be so restrained.

Anyhow, I do some work every day.

Pretty much.

I mean, I've written a marketing plan and an installation manual and a user's guide and helped design the contact management system since I started working here, not to mention getting 150% of the customers we needed for a crucial pilot project. I don't think that's too bad for nine weeks, is it?

The trouble with working for such a small company is that I can't measure my productivity against anyone else's to see if I'm goofing off an excessive amount or not.

The problem with turning into Mary Sunshine and voluntarily showing up for work at 7:15 or 7:30 in the morning is that I tend to start fading pretty badly right about now, 3:30 in the afternoon. That's when I usually start blogging.

That's a lie. I start blogging whenever something to write about occurs to me.

Anyhow.

Alvin is pretty entertaining. Today he earnestly explained to me the different kinds of "stock options" that a company can decide to offer and explained why our company is going to go with the easier to create although potentially less profitable for the employees system.

He seemed worried that it was a deal-breaker and that I might hand in my resignation. When did I start looking so "mature" (old) that people started taking me this seriously? I don't like it.

I didn't understand a single word he said. Except that there was one crucial phrase, something about an "less of an up-front investment" or something that I've been worrying about. I mean, am I expected to pay for the privilege of working here? They're already into me for about $700 in expenses that I haven't gotten around to turning in. If they think I'm going to be able to come up with $10k or $50k or something to "buy a share" of the company, they're in for a big shock. I don't got that kind of money, okay?

I mean, I could maybe raise $5k on short notice, if I really had to. But I'm saving that power for bailing Cap'n Nasty out of jail or buying the Dockside Dame a big-screen TV or something else really important. I'm not investing my borrowing power in my own future.

That would be silly.

My actual fund of urban adventures stories is clearly limited at the moment. I've been too busy to go out for lunch most days and lunch is when I tend to have the most adventures.

Today, for instance, I spent what should have been my lunch break writing a blog. Now it's late afternoon, my enthusiasm for working has ebbed, and I'm blogging again.

I'm thinking this might be a pretty good sign that I'm goofing off too much.