To brighten my day yesterday, my manager gave four of us in our office (Rich, Gavin, Sarah and I) the much-coveted up-front parking pass awards.

We had to do some last minute work last week becausae we are now NASA-reknowned debris recovery experts.

(I can picture the infomercial. It would have an gangly guy in an ugly purple suit screaming at the top of his lungs: Drop something from the sky? Large? Small? Need to find it and find it fast? Just call 1-800-4-DEBRIS and give us your ballistic coefficient and initial conditions. In a matter of moments a team of highly trained rocket scientists will be performing analysis over and over until they are satisfied with their answers to the final inch!)

My role in the whole thing was pretty limited (I was a map-maker) and I was a little surprised I got any acknowledgement at all. But it was nice. Plus last night I discovered this code I had been racking my brain over off and on for a couple of weeks was actually working the way it is supposed to and I can move on. In other words, it turned out to be a rather satisfying day at work.

The unfortunate part about the parking award is I didn't get to use it today. Sigh. Usually my supervisor gives out his own reserved space for these awards. But since there are four of us, he found four reserved spaces that weren't currently in use. Because they aren't in use, people have been parking illegally in them (and he warned us that we might have to come in early to claim them). So, I was the last one in this morning (because I went for a lovely long jog) and Sarah was parked in my space (because someone else had taken her space). Doh! So, instead of driving right up to the front of the building and walking right in, I drove all around one parking lot, drove out, went to my normal parking lot, and came in (the whole process took about 5 minutes longer than if I hadn't tried for the up-front space at all).

I went rock climbing last night. My arms have kind of a dull ache. I saw someone climb across the ceiling of the rock gym though. That was pretty impressive. I keep trying to find a picture of the quarry wall I climbed on Outward Bound. But I can't find it. I'm having a hard time remembering what it was like. Memory is a funny thing.

I need to write a novel. But if I did, it would probably only be self-therapy. And such things are self-indulgant and not very fun to read.

Christina commented today on a new H&M store near her. I love H&M!There was one right down the street from me in Switzerland and I was a frequent visitor. So, I went to look up where other U.S. store locations are. And there's one at the Neshaminy Mall right down the street from Dad's house. Whoo hoo! Now I have a place to go shopping when I go up there for MLK weekend!