Friday

Aug 31, 2001

week's end

Not working is addictive. It's back to work today. But, um, Monday is a holiday! Yes.

It's raining when I wake up during the night. We've gone from a drought to flash flood watches and warnings. But it's a little cooler.

One way to attack work that you don't want to do is to create issue lists from every angle. It doesn't always help but it keeps you busy. It's easy to criticize others for their energy and decsions. Not so easy to criticize yourself. I've become lazy. I've realized that things not done often become things you never have to do.

I am not at my best at work. Why is everything so hard when things get big? Of course, we like the health insurance, free cokes and juice (and chips and fruit). The free coffee. The 401K. But another part of you longs for working in a small team without bureaucracy and such. It seems we need procedures for everything and then the procedures break down and strangle innovation and sanity.

I stop by the parents after work. Dad has a stack of books to return. I give him the Dick Francis novel I finished on the trip and he says I'm there just in time with new stuff. I take a look at Mom's computer and she seems to be doing OK on it. She had a complaint that the 'stuff at the bottom disappeared' and I'd advised on the phone to go to the bottom and pretend to drag the little line up with the mouse grabbing with the left button. I guess this worked. She was vague about what she did. Dad packed up some of the pot roast he'd made and the homemade bread Mom made for me to take home.

Forrest ate the pot roast and I ate leftover lettuce wraps. It's all about what I eat, isn't it? For the record I had a croissant sandwich (chicken salad) from the caterer in the lobby at lunch. This is, at best, dangerous, since there have been food poisoning claims for these folks. But I survived. I combined this with some free chips and a Dr. Pepper (non diet) from my friendly employer. Also for the record, I had no breakfast. As is usual. Just lots of black coffee.

I was forced into the quick sandwich from the lobby vendor by my dawdling at Altex. I went to return the Linksys router that I'd tried the other day when my Linux machine went dark. It was defective. I had a little trouble convincing the powers that be of this fact. The gal at Customer Service looked skeptical.

"But the book says to power everything off, everything, and then power this up first and let it go through DIAG. The light doesn't go off. It says it should. It says, if it doesn't, to flash the firmware, whatever that might mean by 'setting your computer to a fixed IP address.'" say I, trying to sound like I have a clue.

"You don't want to do that," she says. I nod.

"Let me take it to my co-worker who uses one of these," she continues.

After quite a few minutes this gentlemen returns.

"It's defective, want another one?" I already told the gal I'd exchange it if they could test it for me. "I could test it," he offers.

I agree. More minutes pass and her returns with another one which he says works. He gets me to fill out a lengthy form and trades me. I put the thing and my bill in the car and foolishly go back in to shop around. I end up seduced by a device that lets you run two computers with one monitor, keyboard and mouse. It would seem to be a way to gain desk space back. Of course, an elaborate network down time will be required to implement it. Of course. I also buy another super surge supressor since I need to replace some others. (I'm all careful in the wake of the blown power supply, huh? Actually I usually get a new super surge stopper with every new machine.) And I buy some CD sleeves to hold my backup CDs so I can just throw them in the safe or a box. But I spend a bunch of time looking around at the cool geeky stuff. I forget that I'm in the market for a laptop lock until I'm checking out. Checker says they have them. Maybe I'll go back soon. This is something the company should buy me. I seem to remember a memo saying I should have one. But that doesn't mean it is actually worth getting them to buy one.

When I get home from the parents, Forrest has been to work out. He's so good. Especially since our club is still using a tent for the machines since we are remodeling. He said it was flooded. Sigh.

We consider going out for a drink at the Four Seasons. I'm not into it. It would involve potential contact with people in town for the UT football game. I'm not in the mood for that. Forrest vaccilates, seems to want to go, seems not and finally gives in. I feel a little bad. I have two gin and tonics. Tonic seems to convey gin into my body without making me crazy or robbing me of my life force the next day. We read. I do a couple of crosswords, doze in the chair. Catch a bit of Round Midnight, one of my favorite movies, on cable.

Portland from the Willamette

Meta: I'm working on a page to guide the unimaginative (and maybe others) in mindless WEB surfing. Have links you'd like to contribute?

I'm back in the rhythm of updating in this spot. It's much easier to do than when traveling. Particularly since when I'm traveling I'm out there doing, not writing. Hmm...what does my ability to write every day say about my life?

Friday. Free soon. Why do we think, after all, that life is infinite? Like a Friday night.