Granted Wish

Thursday night I was on my way home from marketing class. The drive is about 30 minutes from the Devry campus to my house. It was nearly 10pm and I was tired. It had been a very long week, and I had been fighting off a cold and sinus infection. I drove in silence because sound of the radio hurt my pounding head. Needless to say my patience was minimal.

The majority of my drive was down Lake Street. Its a high traffic road with two lanes in each direction. There is a median between the east and westbound lanes.  As I was driving, about two blocks into the median, there was a break allowing the eastbound traffic to make a left turn onto a side street. The westbound side, the side I was driving, had a "No U Turn" sign. The car in front of me put on its left turnsignal, and slowed, at the break in the median. The continuous eastbound traffic prevented the car from making the illegal U turn, without coming to a complete stop.

The car stopped to wait. I stopped to wait. My impatience grew impatient. I yelled something obnoxious at the car, which I'm sure, was not heard through my closed windows. As I waited, I glanced in my rear view mirror and saw the headlights of several cars lined up behind me. All of them were probably just as annoyed as I was, at that moment. I made a quick wish that one of those cars was a police car. I wished that the police car would see the illegal U turn, pull the car over, and give them a ticket. They deserved it for making me stop and wait. After all, I was feeling tired, and sick, and I just wanted to go home.

The eastbound traffic cleared, and the car proceeded into its U turn. I continued on my way westbound. After passing the break in the median, I glanced into the rear view mirror and saw the red and blue lights begin flashing. I saw the police car that was two cars behind me make its U turn. My wish had been granted. It cheered me up and I drove the rest of the way home with the radio on.

That was the highlight of my week.

Its Like*

Just finished the second week of the new semester in school. Both of my classes are extremely interesting, but the homework is a bit overwhelming. I feel like I am unfocused and I think I’ve reached the point of information overload. My poor brain is being flooded with info from work, school, twitter, and all the really cool blogs that I am following. I could read for hours. Oh yes, and the 24hour PASS session that I attended was highly informative.

We have a team project in my Marketing class to develop a marketing plan for a new product. My team chose to create a new Pop-Tart cereal. Personally, I love Pop-Tarts. I would like them in milk. Any flavor would work for me. I’ve even eaten Pop-Tarts for dinner on occasion. So, basically it’s an exciting project for me. And by the way, Pop-Tarts is a hard word to type.

Anyway, I did accomplish quite a bit this week despite being unfocused. Yesterday I wrote over 3500 words of One Fine Day. That puts the total word count on that story at over 10,000. The story is evolving as I am writing. It’s going in a different direction than I had originally planned. The two main characters have become an interesting side story. A secondary character is taking over the lead role and turning into a shining star. I really like the direction it is going. But, I need to take a step back and let this new direction sink in and gel for a few days.

As I am going through this process of writing, I am finding out interesting things about myself. This week I realized that I am not very good at drawing comparisons. “Like” is not a term that I have used much in the past. Writing in a corporate environment does not lend itself to the use of “like” or “as if” very often. I know when I need a comparison, but seem to draw a blank. So, I’ve resorted to putting an asterisk after the word “like.” Then I type on without actually drawing the comparison. Now, I have to go wander around looking for comparisons just for practice. Maybe I’ll find a few that fit into the story.

I'm a Chicken

Assuming a bunch of SQL and BI people will be checking out my blog after the PASS event…I thought I’d post a quick introduction. Yes, my last name is Strangeway. Yes, I have heard all the jokes about my name, and I do blame my husband. Honestly, it has worked in my favor in business. People usually don't forget me!


I am a BIS major at Devry University and will be graduating at the end of February. I have 6 classes left to complete. Devry has been fantastic for the past 2 years, and while I am anxious to get it over with, I will miss it when I am done. Mostly, I will miss those letters they send out at the end of each semester…you know, the ones that congratulate you for being on the Dean’s List again. Love those!

As a General Manager for an electronic component distributor, I am in charge of all sales and operations. I have been in the industry for 25 years and advanced my career without my degree by being very good at what I do. However, to continue to advance my career to the next level, I needed to formalize my education. It is not easy being a full time student with a family and a career.

For fun, I coached an elementary school chess team until I went back to school. I read and collect books, mostly contemporary. I write short stories and am working on a novel (or two). And I play guitar and rarely sleep. During the day I am a professional, but after hours I'm goofy and tend to make people laugh.

Nice to meet all of you during PASS!
Karie

I’m open to chat about my career so if you have any questions please feel free to email me:
kstrangeway@comcast.net


Nothing beyond this post has anything to do with SQL or BI. The rest is about my writing hobby. But please feel free to browse further.