Lousy morning

It's been a pretty crappy Wednesday so far.

Two days in a row now, I've had 8 o'clock meetings.  Some days I'm just waking up at 8, and most days I'm hopping in the shower or eating breakfast and watching the news.  So the fact I have to get up at 6, fight traffic, and rush to my desk to be there by 8 is not a good start.

So I make pretty good time today, and decide to stop at Starbucks. (Why? Because it's friggin' early and I need caffeine, I thought I explained that.)  I get a "grande" (aka "medium") coffee and a scone.  I had already realized I left my MegaTokyo bag at home (which has my iPod and Clie in it, virtually assuring the day will pass at a lethargic pace and that I will be completely disorganized) and had come to grips with it, until I realized that my ID badge was also in that bag.

The lobby at work opens at 8.  I would normally call Ellen or Brian, but Ellen is out today and Brian only works in Santa Clara on Tuesdays now.

I park my car at about 7:45.  I run over to the building to see if there's something that will let me in.  There's a button to call security, so I push it.  They send a guy over to verify I'm who I say I am and not some corporate spy or national security threat, and I haul ass up the stairs to get there at about 7:58.

Then my call to Tel Aviv won't go through.  I try the lead in India who is also supposed to be on the call, and no luck there either.  By 9 I've spoken to the person I needed to in Tel Aviv and we'll try again next week (with a conference call number) but the entire reason for getting to work early was this meeting.

My coffee and breakfast are still in the car.

I go downstairs and out to the car.  I pick up the cup and notice it's not very sturdy at the top and coffee is dripping from the rim of the cup near the seam.  This happens all the time when the cup is too full and you've hit a speed bump and coffee has sloshed around inside the cup,  so I think nothing of it.  I try to adjust the lid...

and all of a sudden coffee is trickling out in a steady stream.

I look more closely at the rim of the cup and the cup is literally coming apart at the seams.  I immediately start drinking.  It turns out I got a faulty cup and the rim was not sealed correctly.  When I took the coffee out of the cup holder, the seam in the cup actually opened a little at the top, and coffee came pouring out.  I have no idea if my Scion has new coffee-stained interior because I didn't notice the coffee coming out until after I closed the door.

Here's a picture of the damage from my phone:



I've bought a lot of cups of coffee in a lot of different places, and this is a first.

I guess things could be worse, and they're bound to get better. That's a way of seeing the cup as half full.  Unfortunately, this cup is half empty because the other half is all over the parking lot.