Sometimes I Miss Them

Meetings. So much "planning" is involved on the "Plan" team that I rarely see the "Build" or "Run" teams at all.
You know who I also never see? I mean ever? Users.
They don't even know who I am and (as a function of my security role) most of them don't know that I exist.
But I've come to realize that my interaction with users is a vital part of my day-to-day anxiety level and, without it, this blog is kind of boring.
I can't interact with the users here. I'm too busy stripping them of all system access rights and trampling their dreams. So I'm going to get some of my own.
If you don't have me in Instant Messenger somewhere (geek_AT_prettygeekything.com in Gmail and my name with a dot in the middle in Yahoo) now is the time to add me.
I'll be logging in to answer any and all technical or geek-related questions on Thursday afternoons between 1 and 3pm EST (because Eastern Time is how I roll).
I won't post any names in the blog. To the readers, everyone will be as faceless as regular users have always been to me.
But don't stress if you don't have a question. I've posted my services for free on a couple of new-user computer forums as well, so I should get plenty of offers from Nigerian bankers if nothing else.
I've been invited out this evening to "Happy Hour" at some bar kind of near enough to my hotel to minimize the threat to other motorists. Actually, if "Happy Hour" just applies to Miller Light, as I suspect, I'll probably just visit the Starbucks across the street anyway. "Happy" is caffeinated, in my opinion.
The important thing is this: I have something to do besides sit alone in a crowded theatre on a weekend watching movies with my only consideration being how to bring my opinion about it back to Pr3++yG33kyTh1ng.
Perhaps I should drink more, and I would if drinking all by myself in a dingy, darkened hotel room wasn't one of the warning signs my high school guidance counselor highlighted in the pamphlet she gave me that time I ditched algebra to climb up into the lighting grid over the auditorium and drop pennies onto the empty stage to see how high they would bounce. For the record, the answer is "very".