Thursday, February 5, 2009

Oh Gad and Where's my GPS?


Even if I had have needed to turn right, I would have gone straight.
The driver saw me take this photo. I was a little worried he thought I was going to report him and come and persuade me to delete the photo.
Should he have quizzed me on my intentions with the photo, I wonder what he would have said to my response, "Report you? Nooooo. This is going on my blog. Personally I think you could have fit a few more on!"

As for my GPS...
All I know is that it's in one of those "safe places".

How can you not find your GPS I hear you say?
Or maybe you just "Hmph"'d to yourself and thought "Who really cares?".

Anyhoo....

I keep on getting told "Well, just think back to when you had it last".
And I do, but it's not helping.
Why?
Well, seeing as you asked.

A normal day with clients goes along the lines of this.
I have a presentation/training session to do. So as I'm leaving the house my thought processes are something like:
"Ok, lights off, dogs out, doors locked, fans off, garage door locked. I've got my laptop, laptop charger, mobile internet, phone, USB key/s, manuals, notebook, client notes, GPS, wallet, Software CD's, FTP usernames and passwords, list of client usernames, Reader, water bottle, keys, oh crap, keys, heels (because I don't drive in my heels), cardigan for if the room's cold, coins for a coffee on the way. Check."

That's while I'm walking down the hallway to get out the door.

I drive to the location through peak hour traffic and finally get to a carpark.
As I'm getting out of the car my thoughts go:
"Ok, put shoes on, take cardi, bag, water bottle, hide iPod, put phone in bag, don't forget to get the manuals out of the boot, projector, laptop, notebook, GPS needs to be hidden. Ok, a thief won't be able to see it here."

Turn away from car and start walking where my thoughts are now, "Ok, so Chris, Jeff, Wayne, Craig and Michael are going to be in the meeting", then remember the positions of the people, go through what they need.
"What level are they on again?"
"I hope the SSRS Reports run as they should, my SQL has been playing up and running slow of late. Really must get around to formatting my laptop. If only the ATO would get rid of that stupid software I'd do it tonight. BAS is due soon. Need to free up some space on my external hard drive before I can format. I should back up all my pics too incase the hard drive fails shortly. Crap, should have paid the phone bill before leaving. Don't forget to put your phone on silent. Did I lock the car?" Pause. "I think I locked it. Oh well." Start walking again.
Walk into the reception of the client...

So while I know exactly where and what I was doing last time I had my GPS, that incredibly sneaky place I hid it is just a blank space in my memory as I was trying to remember to not call the MD by his last name. Both his first and last name could be first names and sometimes that can catch me out if I'm not paying full attention.

How do you go with people that have potential first names for both their first and last name? Ever get mixed up?

At some point in the next couple of weeks I'm going to have to pull my car apart looking for this sneaky little place. Hopefully the GPS holder is with the GPS, because that's hiding somewhere too. Another thing to add to the never-diminishing To Do List.

That's the universe for me right now.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Narelle,

Good lord, I just read your post on Joe's blog about the fires there in Australia! I am glad to hear that you and the folks you know are all right. You, and all of the folks there who have been affected by the fires, will be in my thoughts.

Narelle from Aus said...

Thanks Sulien!
There's a lot of people out there that need help.
Even when we were watching the smoke get closer and closer, we had no idea how bad it was just around the corner. No one expected anything this fast and ferocious.

Cheers.
Narelle.

Sparrow_hawk said...

Hi Narelle!

Now that load of chairs is a truly impressive packing job!

I'm glad the fires are finally out and that you came through it o.k. I had to laugh when I read your blog entry: as I was driving to my mom's house today to help her continue to pack for her upcoming move I was running through a lot of the same little items you listed "turn off lights, leave water for dog, check the stove, etc." and when I got to "check the stove, I couldn't actually recall turning off the heat under the tea kettle this morning. I knew that I must have done it, but it bothered me for hours.

So did that pesky GPS ever show up? Where was it hiding?

Narelle from Aus said...

Hey sparrow_hawk,

It was impressive packing of those chairs. Do you get the feeling he just tossed them out the window of a building from 4 floors up and where they landed they stayed?

The fires are mostly under control now. Yay! There's still a few burning out of control with a few towns under threat and we had another one pop up nearby last night. We just sat on our decking and watched it until the smoke started to subside. It's quite intense just not knowing. We still haven't had any significant rain for the year so everything is dry and ready to burn. Doesn't take much.

Women seem to be built with the internal checklist. When I get asked why I can't sleep sometimes, it's for that exact reason. All of the items on my list of responsibilities is going through my head and what needs to be done when. It can send you bonkers!

GPS still hasn't shown up! I had a quick look but I had some eager dogs in the back seat and it was rather warm so didn't apply myself too much.

As for the missing Zen. Probably a bit complicated to go into on here. But if you want to email me (couldn't find an address for you on your profile page) I'd be happy to try and explain as best I can :)

Anonymous said...

Hey Narelle,

How's it going? Just dropped by 'cos I need your help and I can't ask on Joe's blog.

I have submitted some designs with a friend under the name warrior_chevron in the Stargate Atlantis DVD design competition.

http://www.sgafanschoice.com

The entries with the top 5 votes will be judged by MGM, producers and sponsors along with the official Fox submissions and the winning design will be on the official Blu-ray cover for the disc. Currently we have an entry coming 2nd. How cool is that?

How to vote:

1. Click on the links below
2. Scroll over the stars next to vote until you see 5 stars and click. That's all.
3. You can only vote once per submission on a PC (it tracks the IP address). The stars will automatically be yellow once someone has voted.

http://sgafanschoice.com/?submissionId=108
http://sgafanschoice.com/?submissionId=106
http://sgafanschoice.com/?submissionId=111
http://sgafanschoice.com/?submissionId=110
http://sgafanschoice.com/?submissionId=144
http://sgafanschoice.com/?submissionId=145
http://sgafanschoice.com/?submissionId=146
http://sgafanschoice.com/?submissionId=147

Thanks for the support.

Cheers, Chev

Narelle from Aus said...

Hey Chev,

Great artwork! Happy to vote. Hope you win! I'll see if there's anyone I can forward the links on to.

Cheers!
Narelle

Anonymous said...

Thanks Narelle so much for the support. I think we're up against some major fan groups. In one day ours went from 2nd to 5th, so I'm seriously trying to contact everyone I know.

I'm super competitive if you haven't noticed. :-)

Always love seeing pics of your dogs. They're gorgeous.

Cheers, Chev