The work foolishness last week was due to me needing to do things for both projects to get ready for deployment. The trips are nearly back to back, so there's only one day that I'm back in the office before leaving on the second.

The second one is longer and more complex. The main piece of equipment was sent for calibration a few months ago, but it was only last week that "boss" had the idea to check it. Turns out the instrument calibration was a bit off. Troubleshooting that took several days. Once we had organized the padded storage case and packed that into a box, surrounded by foam peanuts, ready to ship back to the company, I went back to my office. The "boss" came in a few minutes later and explained that there is a part in the storage case that we might need if the company can't get the thing shipped to us in time, we have to use a collaborator's instrument, and we need to rig up theirs to work like we want it. After she explained the scenario, she ASKED if I thought we needed it. I said that I didn't really know, but it was unlikely that they wouldn't be able get it back to us in time. She asked again. Well, it depends if we will be able to adapt our special part to work with their instrument. She asked again. Let's go get it out. She does that. Asks a question repeatedly until we (members of the team) give the answer she wants. She could have saved time and aggravation for both of us if she would just say, "I want to get the part out so we can take it". Much simpler.

Sunday late morning we three went to an indoor play "center". One of those places with habitrails for kids, arcade games, laser tag, bumper cars, etc. Kitty wanted us all to go since I'm going on travel. There wasn't much for Dolly and me to do and Kitty didn't want to do laser tag. I think that was mostly because of our paintball experience in the summer, even though we told her it was completely different.

On the way home we picked up some chicken feed supplies so they don't run out while I'm gone.

In the evening I walked over to a grocery store to get a few things. One of these was coffee. I don't drink the stuff, but Dolly does. She usually buys what she wants, but she was busy, so she instructed me about what to get. Once I had the coffee-bean canister, I had to ask one of the store staff how to operate the grinder machine. I don't know what he did that was different from what I did, but he was able to get it working. Coffee drinkers. Argh.