Leave @ MindSay

Not content to stare at the clock in the corner of the computer screen whilst vainly attempting to will time itself to accelerate, Emile's Imagination proposed to him a new activity. He would catalogue the surmountable obstacles he encountered in his working routine, and devise a method by which he may overcome them. Insurmountable obstacles would become extinct when faced with Emile's Imagination.
In his response to his working life Emile's Imagination had mutated to become the most prevalent and potent portion of his mind. It was an almost Darwinian process. Those portions of his brain that were ill-equipped to deal with office life (logic, reason, and analytics were some) withered and became sickly. Emile's Imagination had climbed to the top and secured itself a place at the forefront of his cerebral faculties. So dominant it was that Emile found himself unconsciously capitalising it in writing

With his new task in mind, Emile began the short search for inspiration. He had to do naught but check his e-mail to strike gold. There, glowing in his inbox, was the subject of the first entry: the company's "leave" process.
Presently the "leave-beast" existed with a most labyrinthine anatomy. First, one must make the decision to go on holiday. Emile Imagined this process starting in the head of the leave-beast; he might have envisaged it had his Imagination had a less significant control of his diction. Secondly, the aspiring pioneer must resolve to undertake the arduous journey to gain the vaunted "approval." This would occur in the leave-beast's courage gland.

Now resolute, the pioneer would approach the immediate superior in the lesser control gland to ascertain the availability of his leave at the proposed time for holiday. This was a critical step, as without this initial approval the pioneer's journey would be terminated prematurely.

With this approval in hand or, more correctly gland, the pioneer who was once resolute would now be both resolute and slick with approving control slime.

Lubricated in this way, the pioneer would travel swiftly through the leave-beast's stomach of second thoughts and arrive at the entry to the greater control gland, home of the greater superior. This was another critical point in the journey, as gaining entry to this gland could take days, or even weeks. It was here that many times a process would fail, as major delays could hold the flagging pioneer at bay until the intended date slid past. However, once access had been granted, approval would most often follow swiftly. Only in rare cases would the approval from the greater superior be denied.

With the precious greater control slime travel was much easier. It was no more than filling out a request form at the memory controller and notifying the administrative brain cluster of the travel dates. The greater control slime allowed pioneers who obtained it in time to slide with urgent speed down the slopes of bureaucratic inanity, and out the exit to muck-covered freedom.

Considering the process in this way Emile found himself to be feeling quite disturbed and not a little ill. How anyone would ever manage to successfully navigate this horrible creature would remain a mystery to him. So it was that he set about contriving two alternatives to the present unpleasantness.
Number one was to simply shoot the leave-beast in the head retiring it instantly. Replacing it with hierarchical responsibility would expedite the matter greatly. With the superior to provide initial approval, then themselves gaining full approval from the greater superior, the burden on the once-pioneer would be greatly reduced. From there the greater superior would notify all relevant parties thus taking full responsibility.
Emile was satisfied with the simplicity of this process, however his Imagination was not. The problem here was that this was mundane, boring, and only two minutes had passed when he again checked the clock. It was simply too simple. So it was that another more fantastic alternative was devised. All employees of whatever rank there may be would go through the same process.

Firstly, they would take to the "games master" to sign up for one of the trial teams. They would then engage in a gruelling regimen of training, and physical and mental improvement to prepare themselves for the trials to come.

The first of these would be to fight a minotaur. If any member of their team survived the terrifying hand to hand combat with the bull-man they would go on to the next round.

Round two would be a taste test to determine which of three plants provided to them was poisonous. The determination of any one plant must be made in less than three seconds to avoid fatal poisoning. An incorrect guess would see the competitor fired out of a cannon at the competitors in the third round, specifically aimed at their own team should any surviving members be competing.

Round three would be a running race made more exciting by the addition of swiftly-spinning, all-desiccating blades that would gain quickly on the competitors. The last team standing would have their leave approved, after being assigned to them at random from the requests of the remaining team members.

The greatest benefit to this approach, Emile marvelled, was that it would ensure that the longest it would take for leave to be approved was a mere week. The only requests that must wait until the next week were those made during the competition itself. Such an increase in efficiency was exactly what this company needed.

Emile’s task was unenviable, but he understood that it must be his responsibility to develop the means by which his company would rise to the top, and bask in the glorious light of eminent prestige.

So, my first blog entry. One of what will hopefully be many! I'm going to be using this blog to share my random ramblings, musings, rants and so forth. I may also post my lyrics or short stories here too.

I've been looking for a good blog host for about a week now. I had initially signed up for Livejournal, but I realized that it had far more settings than I needed. So, I abandoned my Livejournal account and set off in search of a more simple blog. I decided to try Blogger, but I didn't like any of the templates, and when I tried to modify it, it continually played up. So I found My.Opera. Which looked great. Until I tried to put my own header in. The CSS just wouldn't work for me - I swear, that language is evil. It's conspiring against me. It's going to strike when I least expect it. Anyway, after signing up for goodness knows how many other blog hosts, each one of which failed to meet my standards (which, to be perfectly fair, weren't exactly sky-high), I finally found Mindsay. I scouted around the site a bit and it seems to meet every single one of my needs and wants! So, that's how I got here...I told you this was going to be random :).

My username, My Own Eternity, comes from the song "Before The Chance To Leave" by Motion In Colour. The four lines in my header are the lyrics from that song that always seem to grab me. My blog name, Out Of The Blue, wasn't really inspired by anything in particular, it just seemed to fit with both the design of the header and the sheer randomosity of this blog.

I don't have much to say now...just a few dates I don't want to forget:
31st January - Elliot Minor at Wrexham. Gutted we missed the signing, but the gig was awesome! Bought myself a signed poster and hoodie (the hoodie wasn't signed though)!
6th April - Showtime! at Wolverhampton. First time seeing Daniel Boys live; he was amazing, of course! And so was Kerry Ellis, but I wouldn't have expected any less from her! I found out about some really good West End performers, namely Ramin Kairimloo, Chris Key and Rebecca Lock. The students weren't good at all - I know they're only young, but if they want to go into the West End, they're going to have to be a million times better than they were. And the sound guy should have been shot. It's one thing to get the kids' mics wrong, but the pros as well? Off with his head!
12th April - Elliot Minor's album arrived in the post, and it was one of the first 500 to be shipped, which means it's signed! So now I have their autographs twice :), but I haven't met them once :(.

'Til next time, then,
Take care!

The day was June 24th.  It would be my first day of leave.  The last time I was on leave was for my PCS leave back in October of last year. (Change of Station)  I had requested the 24th of June to the 12th of July, today being the 12th.  My rough plan consisted of driving to TN from CA, next item on the agenda would be to "Kidnap" Stickisituation.   While "Kidnapping" her, we would hang out until my little brother's wedding (spiffyspud ) at which point she would accompany me.   I sincerely wish that i had a personal camera that i could have used during the drive.  There were so many interesting things to see, so many beautiful sights to behold.  America is beautiful, you don't always get to see that if you hang around the same place all the time.  (or you might if your observant for things that are right in front of you).  Somehow I mad the drive in two days.  At the end of the second day I would visit with spiffyspud and crash out on his couch.  After showering and shaving I set out into Virginia for the afore mentioned mission.

 

THE KIDNAP

I donno why I wanna make it sound all... well make it sound the way it does, but thats how i'm leaving it.  Continueing on..  

 

During random times during the drive i would call people with my nifty itsy bitsy cell phone* and talk for as long as they were available.  While there are lots of things to look at while driving, doing so for long periods of time can lull you into a zombie like state.  Not good to be in while driving.  And yes its not good to talk on cell phones while driving either, but on my defense I had a handsfree device that i used while talking, allowing me to drive with both hands and have all the same ranges of motion i would normally have.  So the only hinderence was that I was slightly distracted, much better i think than to be in a stuper.  Well, back to the tale. 

While driving i was trying to nail down the final little details about the little trip I was taking stickisituation  on.  It was my intent to stop by her house, meet her, meet her parents, take a little break from driving, get comfortable in her presence and hopefully have her feel the same, and then set off again in search of grand adventures.  Unfortunately, I was unable to meet her parents as I had showed up earlier than expected.  Rather than wait for an unknown amount of time to meet up with her parents I decided that we should head on out. (now meeting the parents would have been the right thing to do at that point but hindsight is hindsight)

 

To be Continued....

 

 *technically a cell phone, its a pay as go go "go phone" from cingular that suits my needs.  No cameras, no music, no internet, just a phone that DOES happen to have text message capabilities.

Graymatter.....How could you leave without a trace?

Just leave us poetryless....is that fair?

Just when I was falling for your art...

You vanish to another galaxy...

 

no more poetry?.

I am very angry .....

pissed with your leaving...

I may even be angry for the rest of my life.. 

 

You weren't supposed to leave..