Yesterday was the one day a week I go into the office. I’ve said before that I love my job. The rest of the days the past couple of weeks have been long days. Either up early or up late trying to get an issue resolved with work.

Being that I went into the office yesterday I packed everything up and went in. That means I put my laptop, my tablet, mouse, mouse pad, secudeid, everything. I pack it all into my computer bag and head off to work early in the morning.

Yesterday went well except I still hadn’t corrected the issue I’d been working on. Frustrated I packed up from the office, headed out to get my favorite daughter from school, and went home to log back on and do some more work before I took her to volleyball practice (more on that in a minute).

All the way home something nagged at me. I’d forgotten something. I knew I had forgotten something but I could not figure out just what it was. I thought long and hard, but it just kept escaping me. You know that feeling.

I picked up my favorite daughter, got home, and set up my laptop. I plugged it in and placed the secureid in its spot. I powered on, plugged it in. Set down the mouse pad. Reached in to where my mouse should be. Didn’t find it. Looked into the bag. Didn’t see it. Dug around. It wasn’t there. It just wasn’t there. I did not have my mouse.

Now my mouse isn’t anything special. Well, not really. It’s got a few more extra thumb buttons and I have those programmed for specific tasks. There’s Back and Forward for the browser, but I also have alt+tab programmed in as well as CTRL+F5. This helps me type code and two mouse clicks and I can refresh a web page quickly. I’m used to it. It’s habit for me. I love my mouse. There are a couple other things programmed in the mouse as well.

So I found a mouse we had gotten for my favorite daughter when up in Oregon last year. It’s acrylic with a June Bug in it. It’s got two buttons and a scroll wheel. It’s a mouse. It’s not MY mouse though. My mouse is a laser mouse, this one is an optical mouse. My mouse is cordless. This one has a cord. My mouse is black. This one has a literal bug in it and glows red and yellow or green or blue depending on where it’s in the rotation.

What I’m getting at is I’m used to my mouse and how it acts. So far since plugging this thing in I’ve wanted to throw it across the room, wrap it in duct tape, beat it on the table. It’s distracting because of the flashing colors. It’s distracting because of the bug. Those things I can handle. The buttons are connected with a single piece of plastic that wiggles all over the place. The roller is so sensitive that it I roll too hard it clicks. Being an optical mouse on a mouse pad specifically designed for a laser mouse means it hops, skips, and jumps around the screen at whatever speed it wants.

Yes, I want my mouse back. I almost drove into the office to get mine. I almost went to Office Depot to get a new one. I figured this is a good lesson for me to not forget my mouse in the office anymore. So I sit and I struggle and I fight with this mouse. I’ll grumble about it until I have my own mouse back.

So my favorite daughter’s ankle is doing well. She can walk mostly normal now. She’s still got a slight limp. I didn’t think she was going to go to practice last night giving me a free night to either work on my problem from work or to get in some much needed writing time to finish off My Teacher is a Werewolf (I’m building to the confrontation scene!). In many ways I’m glad she decided to go. She was there to help the coach and cheer the other girls on. I could tell it pained her to not practice with the rest of the team. Even though I didn’t get to do what I wanted to do, I’m very happy I took her to practice. It’s not always about me. 🙂

Speaking about me. I did manage to get that issue resolved with a hybrid solution. Just one solution didn’t work so I mixed a couple together and that appears to be working. I will be doing a lot of testing tomorrow. But for now, I’m going to see how many words I can get written in a short amount of time.

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!