6 Pints of Guinness Down the Hatch

Today began strangely.

A pigeon flew at high speed through the apartment from the west-side windows and exited through the east-side windows just as I was sitting down to chug a mug of instant coffee. It was a quick swoop through of less than a second, with a short pause of grabbing a low-hanging horizontal drying rack bar for re-orientation before exiting.

It was some class A flying that was more exhilarating than terrifying. At least the pigeon was observant enough to not ram its head into the glass.

I did more reading for a while before heading out to ``Georges @ TS'', a franchise outlet of the Georges brand for some beer, food, and of course, reading. I could have read OpenStax College: Organisational Behaviour, but I chose to read the dead-tree version of On Playing the Flute: The Classic of Baroque Music Instruction (2nd Edition) by Johann Joachim Quantz instead.

I like that particular bar because it was actually very close to the headquarters of the company that I was working for, and it was the place that I would often head to after work to just unwind with a Guinness (or three), some food, and lots of reading on whatever I had lying around. The location of ``Georges @ TS'' was where the old ``Meats N Malts'' bar was located. The location may be the same, but the vibes were definitely different.

Eventually the owner [of the outlet] and the staff figured me out as a regular and I had been going there at least once a week ever since. That is, until I resigned from my position at the company to go on my sabbatical.

Missing out a little on some Guinness and the ambience, I decided to head out there in the afternoon/evening for old time's sake.

The owner wasn't there, but he did have an assistant manager running the place. I think she learnt about me as a regular before I finally tapped out of the company, and among the first few things that she asked when she saw me earlier today was ``woah, haven't seen you in a while''.

On a tangentially related side track, I was infamous as a regular mostly because I was the only idiotnerd who would actually read at a bar during happy hour. To be fair, I was also drinking like a fish while reading, but it seems that I made my mark partly also because I wasn't one of those folks who would sexually harass the wait staff, as told to me by a wait-staff-turned-friend.

I just raised an eyebrow. So my claim to infamy was being an über-nerd and not being a dick. That's really odd to be remembered for.

Anyway, I spent a nice afternoon with the reading, and based on the old eye-balling, am about halfway through On Playing the Flute: The Classic of Baroque Music Instruction (2nd Edition).

Serendipitously, just as I was about done for the day [with 6 pints of Guinness down with two meals and one snack], a couple of my ex-colleagues happened to pass by the bar, and somehow managed to recognise me. They stopped by to say hi, and asked me if I had a job already, to which I naturally replied ``nope'' in the most cheerful countenance I could have.

I think that's about it for today. Till the next update I suppose.