Burning Cold

I was in a meeting with our clients the other day. A pretty high profile financial meeting.

Each of the Solution Managers’s were in charge of giving updates on each of their projects – including a financial rundown. 

Our Portfolio Director was discussing our overall portfolio budget and how we are going through it rapidly and he used the term, “we’re burning hot”. 

That stopped me for a minute. I’ve heard it a lot lately – and it doesn’t exactly make the most sense to me. On top of that, in my humble opinion, it is incredibly redundant. 

So I IMed one of the Solution Managers in the meeting. The following is our actual conversation… (Note – name changed to protect the innocent)

Brittney: Isn't the term “burn hot” redundant?

Frederick: Umm, yeah and totally inaccurate. It's the new buzzword. The new propinquity.

Brittney: When you do your presentation, can you say you're burning cold? Which means you are on track. I'd give you a dollar.

 

Frederick: :) I bet I could squeeze that in free of charge

Brittney: You'd be my new favorite SM... hands down.

Frederick: I wasn't already?!?

Brittney: Oh.. uh... I meant my very very favorite.

Frederick: you've always been my new favorite PA. lol

Let me just say I had no expectation that Frederick would actually do this. 

 

BUT HE DID.

While describing their current spending trend, he threw out that they were “burning cold.” I about died.

Brittney: YES!!!!

I wanted to see people’s faces to gauge their reaction- but I was smiling/laughing too hard, I had to look away...

Frederick: Not a twitch. No response!

Brittney: I thought someone would ask for clarification or something!! Nice job though, I'm very impressed.

 

I couldn’t stop grinning the rest of the meeting. It was way too funny. The worst part is no one even blinked. They all acted like “burning cold” is a real business term. 

Oh, the ways to amuse yourself in business meetings!

Love,

Brittney

Put down the casserole and step away from the minivan!

Date: About 7 years ago, making Bobbie about 6 years old. She could have been younger, I’m not sure.


Location: Saudi Arabia, old Dammam highway (I think?)


Purpose of trip: Dad was taking Taylor, some of his friends, Kamiah and Bobbie sand sledding/boarding. They were all piled in the suburban.
Situation: They are driving on the highway, and there is a security checkpoint (the military/police set up random checkpoints all over the roads. They are mostly to check for Iqamas – making sure that people haven’t come for Hajj and then stayed in Saudi to work) ahead.


Dad slows down, and the military man motions for Dad to roll down his window. He proceeds to ask for all of Dad’s documentation, Iqama, Istemara.


As he and his comrades are going over the documents, Bob rolls down the window in the Suburban – she’s in the back, but on the same side as the military checkpoint- and she yells,

“PUT DOWN THE CASSEROLE AND STEP AWAY FROM THE MINIVAN!!”


**Bob is a pretty shy kid. Really shy, actually. So why she decided to do this, which is way out of her personality, is beyond explanation.


**Also – why she decided this would be a good thing to yell at the Saudi military is also unexplainable.


** It is also somewhat sentimental to note that Dad brought Kamiah for 2 purposes:

#1 she LOVED playing in the sand dunes, and

#2 – the Saudi’s HATE dogs. A lot. He thought if he put Kamiah in the car next to him, the military would see her and freak out and just let him through without scrutinizing his documents.

**If you don’t know this casserole reference, it's from a Mormon movie, The Singles Ward.



Skittle Bowling of '11

What is better than bowling?

I'll tell you.

Skittle bowling.

Skittle bowling with my siblings, the loves of my life.

Skittle bowling with my siblings, the loves of my life, in Aramco (PS - they redid the bowling alley! I'm not completely in love with the changes. It has TV screens now that calculate your score, display whose turn it is and show cartoons dying when you strike out. In Jr. High, it was mandatory to take a bowling class. The point of the class wasn't to learn how to bowl and improve your score - it was to learn HOW to calculate your score by hand. We had to take tests. In PE. To prove we could mathematically calculate our scores. I hated it).

Skittle bowling with my siblings, the loves of my life, in Aramco, wearing matching shirts.

Mom gave us these shirts for Christmas. So, we wore them to bowl. You know, in case people wondered if these crazy white kids skittle bowling were from the same family. We wanted to show our solidarity. 

YAH! YAH!

In case you've never had the opportunity to skittle bowl, I'll fill in the details.

I don't know where I first became acquainted with skittle bowling, but I immediately recognized the merits and introduced the sport to my family. Now it's a tradition. I think maybe the matching shirts should become one as well. It went over great.

You draw a skittle before each turn. Each color represents a certain way you have to bowl.

This round, the schematics went as follows:

Red - Between legs

Purple - Left handed

Yellow - Backwards and draw 1 more 

Green - eyes closed

Orange - One handed, no fingers in holes

Last turn -draw 3 skittles until they are all different.

Then you eat your skittle and bowl!

The first game, we bowled normally. I creamed their sorry butts. The next game was skittle bowling, and I actually did the worst, I think. I have no skittle skills. I am oddly at peace with that.

We wrote our names on a piece of paper and they entered our names in for us at the desk. I didn't know they were going to do that, (in my experience you enter your own names in the computer) and apparently I didn't write my name very legibly (in my defense, the guys working behind the counter speak barely any English).

World, meet BNHNY!!

I am now Bnhny Ninnie!

Bob's Artistic take on the skittle bag.

Bob is possibly the cutest kid in the entire world. Actually, for sure she is. Wearing an iGame shirt, a bright yellow hoodie and a platypus hat (As demoed by me below. I guess we didn't really get pics of her in it while bowling).

 

 

Apparently I needed comfort after a bad bowl? Not sure.

 In case there was question about whether Ramzi rocks or not.

 

 

 

 

I love you guys! Until we skittle bowl next, I remain yours,

Bnhny Ninnie