I got a call at 5:30 this morning, from New York. Our sales guys had noticed that the Data Center wasn't responding to requests, was down, was costing us untold thousands of dollars an hour.

Bad thing.

So I leapt up, threw on whatever clothes happened to by scattered around the bed -- most of them were mine, thankfully -- and raced off to work, without showering, without shaving, without even brushing my teeth.

Twenty minutes later, I careened into the computer room, and started banging away on the problem. I got the system running, but did a lot of clean up, too, and by the time I emerged a couple of hours later, the office was crowded with people. I wandered out of the computer room, dressed in yesterday's clothes, my hair pointed at odd angles, a little drool tried on my chin, still unshowered, unshaven, unbrushed.

And nobody seemed to notice.