Thankful for:

• Courteous road users: The final crossing before I make the right turn up the tiny road to my apartment is about as busy as it gets by the time I drag myself home. There are people turning left into the big housing complex just down the road from me, people going to see movies at the beach and all that. I often spend five or more minutes waiting for the traffic to lighten up enough for me to make a dash across the road. This week, I have had the delight of having a couple of drivers stop to allow me cross, even when they have not had to.
• Resolution: How I managed to get sucked into a spat at work beats me, but I ended up exchanging almost seven emails trying to defend a technical call I made on a work item. The downside of being the Asset Integrity guy is I often have to insist on cutting back production to allow safe operation of the asset I support, and that doesn’t really sit well with the production guys. Thankfully, I took a break from the to-ing and fro-ing and allowed a day pass before sending my final reply. That and common sense prevailed in allowing us reach a compromise.
• Good starts: From time to time opportunities arise at work where I get to demonstrate my technical depth. This week, I had to respond to a technical question from one of the older colleagues. Being able to provide detailed answer made my smile inwardly to myself – thankful for the grounding in Corrosion and Materials I got from my first gig at XOM.