You’ll have to come back for the last part or two (I haven’t decided yet) of my house party adventure. I haven’t had time to write it, so I’ve gotta leave you hanging a bit longer than I had hoped. My apologies.

And while I’m apologizing, I have been a bad reader of blogs this week. Damn work schedule keeps getting in the way of my blog reading. In many cases, I am reading – but just don’t get back to comment as I wish I could. Forgive me?

Work – ah, work. It is exactly what its name implies. Work. I have a huge mountain to climb. This project is beyond fucked up. Thankfully, I was brought in before it got much worse. They have contracts signed – nothing defined in the contract except how much we will pay them. No delivery is defined. If I can put forth one good piece of info if you are dealing with an outsourced IT group or person – make sure the contract details what you expect them to deliver for your money. Would you sign a contract for a house that did not include the details of you taking ownership of the house? No. Don’t do it with systems work either. I don’t care if it is a sexy IT guy who is going to install your blackberry server, or a person who is going to research the feasibility of an application, make them give you something at the end even if it is only a document outlining their findings. They paid several thousands of dollars to have an assessment done. The result was a verbal – “yep, it’ll work if you pay us $120K”. They are a young company….or at least young in terms of having to worry about this stuff.

But the good news is the fact everyone loves me. Except one executive who will be the bane of my existence until I can figure out how to get him out of the way. Yes, I will get him out of my way – mark my words on it.  My boss loves me. His boss loves me. And I have had several people say that they can’t believe it is only my 4th day on the job. It’s as though I’ve been there forever. (I am picking up things faster than most.) But I’m not letting it get to my head – just makes me realize how hard I have to work to get this done.  At least I’m enjoying it…..so far.

Meanwhile, back in Central Oregon…..my family is imploding. I have gotten several calls from my little brother Nick. Nick and my other brother Brad got into a huge fight. Actually, Nick didn’t get angry. He just responded in a way that pissed Brad off. This came after Nick was trying to get Brad to finish the contract work he had hired him to do for his restaurant. He offered Brad a great deal – and Brad’s response was “you’d better check with your boss before you go offering things like that.” Nick’s comment back was “I AM the boss.” Brad flipped out – hung up on him – and now won’t return calls.

Why is this wearing on Nick? Brad and Nick were best friends. They supported each other through thick and thin. Nick has never seen this behavior, so he is at a loss of what to do. He has tried reaching out to Brad to make amends, but Brad won’t answer his phone or email or text messages. Nick doesn’t know what to do.

Big sister’s advice: tell his ass off. When Brad’s life is not where he wants it to be, he treats people like shit. This is my brother’s mode of operation. I gave Nick example after example of this happening throughout our lives. And told him he needs to not back down. He is not in the wrong – and if Brad wants to be a baby, then he should go be a baby all by himself.  Brad and his wife are going to lose their house. I do not believe it is 100% their fault nor do I believe it is 100% the bank’s fault. I do believe if he wanted to keep it, he could. I also believe that Brad put himself in this position by taking some advice instead of doing the math himself. (Brad has a minor in Math – yet he let a questionable lender convince him to buy a house outside of his means.) I also know Brad is frustrated with his job. He still has a job which is the good news, but they have had to take pay cuts.  He is not in a great position. I get that. But instead of taking any level of responsibility in it, he is going to blame the institution. He’s going to blame people who do make it work. He is going to tell people who are considering buying a house, for example, that they are stupid for buying a house – everyone is.  When he is in this mode, he won’t listen. And if you don’t listen and agree, you get treated like shit.  Nick needs to be clear that he’s not playing the game.

I have have probably started WW III.  I don’t really care. I have never stood for this behavior from Brad – ever. Everyone else makes excuses for him – so until it stops, this won’t stop.

The Super Bowl will be interesting this year and not just because who is playing. We have been invited to the Super Bowl party of a couple from the House Party. It is a kid-friendly event with their “horizontal friends”. In fact, there will be another couple from the party there too: Shy Guy and his wife. They are nice people. We’ve been getting to know them more this past week. And we have plans to get together with them next week.

Other than the Super Bowl, I’m hoping to get caught up on my sleep. I have been paying for the weekend all week. Not that I regret it. Couple it with the fact I have not gotten to run all week, and I am not feeling 100%. Hopefully I can start turning that around this weekend.

So to start your Friday off right, I leave you with this video – sent out by one of the guys on the team at work. The subject on the email, “you never know who will see you aren’t browsing emails.”

Have a great weekend!