stumbling out of the starting blocks

today, pretty much nothing is going right. work-wise, our experts are debating over how to fix our vibration issues. also, we tried to fill the generator. to fill the generator, we have to fill with CO₂, then purge that out with H₂. the customer ran out of H₂ at the EXACT wrong moment. we need high purity (99%) and pressure (~30psi). we got 99% but ran out of any more H₂ to get pressure, so now we are kind of in limbo. it's possible we don't have enough CO₂ to get all the H₂ out, so we are kinda on the fulcrum of a perfectly balanced see-saw waiting to see which way we fall first.

i checked my flight to munich today and the ticket had been canceled because they hadn't received a "travel authorization" for my return flight to egypt. egypt is considered a "level 2" threat country, so we need prior approval from higher ups, but since i've been here so long, my original approval still counts. i checked the approval, still valid, called the travel center, and they said they needed a screenshot. i leave in less than 48 hours, COME ON!. i wasn't horribly excited about this trip until we worked 16 hours yesterday, and i realized i really needed some time off. so, HOPEFULLY the travel center can hook me up and fix things today. oh, and yeah, this trip to munich was going to be myself, two ex-TAs, and a current TA. i booked two rooms for 5 nights at a total of about $1800 (oktoberfest gouging at it's best, we are in a freaking HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS!!!). one of the guys had to back out due to work scheduling and one of the guys isn't coming in until the end of the fest, so i called to cancel one of the rooms. they said i couldn't cancel since it was a 14-day cancellation policy (that WASN'T mentioned when i booked it), so now i have two rooms for two people at an outrageous expense. luckily i get some per diem for my R&R from the company, but still. maybe we'll make one of the rooms the orgy room or something. find some girls who need a place to crash. grass, gas, or ass. well, gas doesn't work in that situation but...

that's about it. i'm tired, only got about 4 hours sleep last night if that. sore from installing and removing all these balance shots for the vibration (numerous people have taken numerous pictures of me squeezed up in there, i'll find some later). i just want my bed. since i can't have that, i guess i'll just eat my lunch.