Yeah, I know. I’m falling down on my (reduced) blog duties. Corporate brass was at our outpost this week. Every time the Big Guy comes to town, ten people are chosen at random to sit down with him and say what is ever on their alleged minds. I have been fortunate to avoid this goat schtup for four years, but this time I got caught in the net. Certainly no good could come from this “opportunity.”

I didn’t think it went that bad. I merely made the obvious pitch to expand the capabilities of my little Network Security team. Blind man and the elephant stuff.

This time they brought a hatchet man with them. Or so it has been leaked. Armondo. Armondo is a Central Asian dude with dark, dark copper skin and a huge bouffant of white hair. Danny Zucko in the Balliwood remake of Grease. He looks every bit the Bond villain. He also smells like a barroom sink. At first I thought it was bad cologne, but then the telltale waft of gin hit the top of my sinuses. Garg. Once I tuned into that, I could smell him when he was about to pass by my desk and I had the opportunity to splash the office door with lambs’ blood.

So… I was waiting for Brass + Armondo to get back on the plane East before I goofed off long enough to crank out a blog. Brass left yesterday. This afternoon I about jumped out of my shoes when Armondo breezed past me at the coffee station. “Drat! I thought you were gone, Angel of Death!”

No. I didn’t say that. But I’m looking over my shoulder and sniffing for hints of fermented juniper berries in the air.

My boss stepped into a one-on-one meeting with the Big Guy at 2:30 yesterday afternoon. He never came back. His personal stuff and his lunch and backpack are still where he left them on his desk. I’m a wee bit concerned that something went down. (“Ya think, Shawn? Dumbass?”) Ehn, when my boss gets really mad, sometimes he goes AWOL for a day or so. I hope it’s that.  I hope it has nothing to do with why Armondo has a giant gut bulge the approximate size of a Canadian.

Sigh.

On the upside, I’m a few hours away from the return of My Beautiful Wife from her combination Trade Show/visit with the World’s Greatest Mother-in-Law™ in Orlando. She has a way of taming the undulating weirdness of my week back into its wicker basket.  I can’t hold her soon enough. The inside of my arms itch. But that might just be the residual rash I picked up from those skanky strippers.

Also, I’ve been trying to not write a couple blog posts that were percolating in my brain. Stuff that was trying to crawl out of my heart and onto the page, but stuff that might also be misinterpreted by dear friends and/or family.

I’m going to let those thoughts marinate a bit longer in the wash of Armondo’s drunkfunk and see if there’s a classy way to crack that nut without yet another friend-and-or-family member disowning me.

Boxtrolls opens in the US this weekend. I hope it does well. It’s my agent’s bread-and-butter. She represents many of the lead animation team at Leika. Hopefully after the hooplah runs its course, she’ll focus on my MS. We’re at nine months and the silence from her end is deafening.