Above, you'll see what I see every day. A giant monitor, a beige wall, and only my companion Patrick the Starfish to keep me company.
Below that is the view of my desk from the other side. All those pieces of paper hanging up behind my chair were put there by Lara. She thrives on paper documentation. The picture of Skottie and Trooper is my only contribution to the wall, aside from a printout of a George W. Bush joke, which gets mysteriously covered up on a regular basis.

I was more than happy to get away from my desk and down to the gym to work off some of the stress. I found that I wasn't doing as well as I did yesterday, running-wise. I kept having to raise and then lower the running speed and the incline. I also felt a bit dizzy, which I never get. I plugged on through it, though, and ended up going 3.5 miles while watching a special on America's Top Model. The sad thing? I'd seen the special once before.

This is one of the best things about our office. Above is a shot of one side of the shower room. There's a shower stall on the other side (which doesn't make for interesting pictures unless there's someone hot in it), and a door that closes and locks. It's like being in a spa. Below it is the gym, where I torture myself on a regular basis. I just took a shot of the cardio area, but there are also free weights and a Universal machine to work out on. A pretty cool bonus, since it's all free.

The end of my run finally came, and I had a bit of trouble getting my breath back. I walked around the gym, stretching and drinking at least a gallon of water, one Dixie cup at a time.

I eventually cooled down enough to grab a shower, try and do something with my hair, and go back upstairs for the remainder of the day.

We have a lot of "art" around the office. Near the IT department is the first picture you see. Basically, it's a collage of bamboo sticks wrapped in different colors of speaker wire. It looks pretty cool the first time you see it, but then you notice its flaws. Below that is our "great big glass beads" installation. I don't know if it has a name or not. It might be a cool work of art, catching the light in the sun during the day, if it wasn't for one thing:

I don't know if that piece was meant to go in the old building or if it was measured wrong, but it's far too long for the window in which its installed. Instead of calling in the artist to shorten the length of the beads, the company decided to "puddle" the giant glass beads on the window ledge. Puddling works for velvet drapes, but with gigantic glass beads? Not terribly impressive.

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