Giving up on Rafiqi's for lunch: ouch

Every so often, I go to one of the local food carts for lunch: chopped lamb (or probably mutton, sliced off one of those skewers used to make gyros) on rice, with onions and lettuce and stuff. They offer a variety of toppings (green peppers, olives, tomatoes, and the like) and sauces. I always ask for just the white sauce.

Today, I got back to my office and started eating my lunch, including the very nice sauteed onions. I noticed after a few bits that parts of it were spicy. I made the mistake of trying to identify those bits (I could see some hot sauce in places). I only stopped when it was actively painful.

I have thrown that out, and gone out again. I am now eating a chicken and cranberry sandwich, despite having originally gotten the lamb and rice because I felt "I don't want a sandwich" half an hour ago. Pret a Manger may not be exciting, but it's reliable, and right now I didn't want to chance another lunch I couldn't eat. My mouth stopped hurting about the time I got to Pret; call it five minutes from when I gave up on that lunch.

I am disappointed, because I like lamb and there aren't that many places that will serve it for a reasonably cheap lunch; angry, because damn it, this isn't difficult, the sauces are in separate bottles; and unhappy, because damn it, that hurt.

A slightly short workday, and a good workout

A little before 4:00 this afternoon, I lost my connection to the Internet. I couldn't find either of the IT guys, and since the first thing they generally advise is to restart the browser (which I'd already done) and then the computer, I figured I might as well try that. Fortunately, I did my usual "back up the current project to the server" first.

My machine shut down smoothly, and then wouldn't come back up. I could tell it was drawing power (a green light on the case, and the fan was running). I talked to my boss, who emailed IT (since I couldn't). About ten minutes later, Rondell (the junior IT person) came over, poked around, and got the machine to make some disconcerting noises and display a "check cable connection" message on the monitor. After a little while of that, he said he would have to call Dell.

Fortunately, I won't be stuck until he can fix my machine, because he had a just-delivered Windows 7 machine, still in its box, which will be on my desk tomorrow morning. (No word on whether that's temporary while he tries to fix the current one, or permanent: the one I have been using was second-hand, sent to us after they closed my company's Florida office.) At that point, my boss said I might as well leave for the day if Rondell didn't need me, so I stopped by his desk; he asked for my username and password, so I wrote them down, then headed to the gym.

( there are advantages to getting to the gym at 5:00 instead of 5:30 or 6 )