36 posts tagged “dland”

Things have been sort of bittersweet lately. I attended the wedding of a good friend of mine this past weekend, and had a fun time. I come back home and feel absolutely zero motivation to clean up the pile of clean laundry that is sitting in the corner of my room, collecting dust. I decide to go to the grocery store to get off my butt, get motivated, come back full of energy, suggest a little afternoon rendevous in the bedroom with DeeDee, partake of the carnal pleasures of the flesh, and suddenly am back to zero-go Moe. Hell, if I had known that all that energy was only going to last me through sex, I could have stayed home, had some fun, and still ended up watching football on the couch all afternoon!

Anyway, I've about a million and seven things that must get done at work, and it seems that I have no time to do them...Every time I sit down to focus on one of my gazillion tasks, someone shows up, or calls, or emails me, and I have to break my intense "concentration" (headphones with the playlist blasting) to go answer some inane question or, even more likely, get another task assigned to me to work on!

Although I do like being busy over being bored (although if I was bored, this journal might get updated more often), sometimes too much is just too much. I think I'm going to unplug for a few hours every day, and just focus on me and the work at hand...that means no conversing with others (hard to do, but I think I'll manage), no email, no phone, and most of all, no internet. It's true, I'm as guilty of disrupting my work as others are...so it's time to fix that, and be a little more productive. Hell, who knows, maybe I'll be able to cut down my workload a little and get back to updating more than once a month!

Currently Reading

A bunch of the M.Y.T.H. books by Robert Asprin. I really like how funny they are, in an understated punnish sort of way. I think I associate myself with the main character Skeeve (a somewhat bungling magician's apprentice who's teacher was murdered just after summoning a fellow wizard (a "demon" from Perv, which makes him a Pervect, not a Pervert) while simultaneous robbing his friend of his magic powers, okay, this sentence is really long and I can't sum up the plot in one sentence anyway, but the books are really good!) I'm on book 6 or so of 11 or 12, and I'm putting them away about one every day or two (not hard to do, since they're around 200 pages per paperback).

Currently Watching

Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) rule! I now set up the recording of my whole week's worth of television on a lazy Sunday afternoon, and then can neglect the TV for most of the week, and still catch my favorite programs on the weekend, during the really-bad-movie hours. Since a half hour tv show becomes 22 minutes without commercials, and an hour program 44 minutes, I'm not only saving lots of time by pre-recording my TV, I'm also saving myself from being subjected to hours and hours of asinine commercials. Now that's a win-win situation!

Currently Listening To

The "Eclectic Playlist Collection" that resides on my computer. Includes such variety as the Toadies, Blink 182, Tantric, Dave Matthews Band, Elliot Smith, Carmen McCrae, Tori Amos, NOFX, No Use for a Name, Dar Williams, and Jimmies Chicken Shack. It's keeping me sane right now, and that's about all I'm gonna say on that.

Currently Thinking About

How nice it'd be to take a vacation right now. One of those where you can do what you want, when you want, and not answer to anyone. Like the one I'm planning on taking in a a little over 2 months, on my HONEYMOON!

Yeah, yeah, I promised an entry but didn't provide...like that's anything new? Anyway, I've been cleaning out my office at home and putting in my new computer system and finally got a router that actually WORKS (woohoo) so I've been beaucoup busy with that....I also managed to sit down and actually work on an intro to a short story idea I've had for a while, so thing may be getting even busier if I can keep that up. Anyway, sometime later this week I should have some free time to reminisce about my ambulance ride and make sure I've got it all captured for posterity purposes :-)

Notified readers never miss a chance to put off tomorrow what they can put off today.

Boy did I have a scare last week! I ran in the local leg of the Corporate Challenge (3.5 miles) for my company and collapsed at the end of the race...I had a terrifying ride in the ambulance to the hospital, followed by a treatment, discharge, and re-entry to the hospital via the emergency room all within a 24 hour period of time. After 6 long days in a hospital bed, the doctors let me come home to recuperate in my own home - which means I might be better, or at least, getting better!

I'm going to talk about my hospital stay on another day, today I'm going to talk about the race and all...

The race itself was awesome, for the most part. They announced that there were over 6000 competitors (although some of them were jogger/walkers and therefore didn't really count) in the race that day, and it was quite a sight...the rain had fallen and was still coming down, which I didn't mind, as it was a darn sight better than running in the 90 degree, sunny and humid-as-the-rainforest weather we had been having for the previous few days. [In fact, it was probably this rain-instead-of-sun that misled me into how much I was overexerting myself.]

Anyway, we all went over by the starting line and suddenly the mob of people was moving forward...I started my watch as I was swept by the crowd underneath the starting line banner, and decided I didn't like it running on the heels of others and having my own clipped by the person behind me every time I took a stride. I started moving my way up through the throng of runners a little bit at a time, ducking between swinging arms and churning legs, hopping from one empty patch of road to the next as the crowd shifted and writhed its way down the course. I tried hard not to push myself too hard during the first mile, and succeeded in only turning in a 7:15 minute first mile split...which was about 2-3 minutes faster than I had planned on doing that day, being sort of out of shape and all!

But I was feeling good. Confident and strong, I continued my pace through the second mile, still passing people who went out too fast and were slowing down all around me. I had a little more space to maneuver in by the second mile, coming through at an astonishing (for the shape I was in, remember) 15:16 split. I couldn't believe how fast I was going, and still felt like I had something left in me to spend!

By the time I had a mile left of the three and a half mile race, I could tell I was starting to hurt a bit. I was digging inside to keep myself going, and I think I came through the third mile marker around a time of 23:45, which would make my third mile in the race a nice little 8:29...not too bad, I thought! Or, I would have been thinking if I had been in my right mind!

For by that time, I was starting to go into my running-trance-zone...people around me became shapes to dodge...my eyes were unfocused, I was concentrating solely on moving forward, keeping going, pushing myself to not slow down, and possibly even sped up for a while. I entered an area of the road where the edges were lined with metal fences to keep back the crowds, and knew I was near the finish...

And that's all I remember. Sorry, the king of anticlimaxes, I know. But either I finished the race and collapsed, or I collapsed within 200 yards of the end. I'll never know, and neither will you. :-)

Anyway, Monday I'll write about my harrowing ambulance ride and my stay in the hospital...and I promise it'll have a better ending!

Notified readers know when to stop running before they collapse.

So today's the first day of my summer class...I love this time of year. I am one of the blessed at our company that not only gets tuition paid for their classes, but actually get PAID to ATTEND class! Yes, that's right. Since the ultimate goal of my work's program is to have me get a masters degree while doing rotations in various engineering business areas, they pay for my weekly class time...Bonus, huh?

Anyway, my class this summer is from 4:00-7:30 every Tuesday and Thursday...since I never ususually work past 5:00, this gives me an extra 5 hours of already-worked time to put towards my standard 40 outside of regular business hours. Combine this with the fantastic flexible-time work policy we've got here, and you've got a schedule made in heaven. Effectively, I can arrive at work at 8 AM Friday morning and leave by 11. How sweet is that?

Anyway, this class really should be a joke. I mean, the title of the class is "Unix and the Internet". Now, I'm no *nix guru, or even a near-expert, but I know enought to make my way around a shell and do what I need to do. Unless this class is going to start doing some shell programming and socket-related stuff, this is most likely going to be a heavy review of stuff I've learned in past-taken unix courses....and there's nothing I like better than being able to let my mind wander during a class (and getting paid for it!)

So today I'm leaving around 3ish to pick up a parking pass for one of the student lots, and make sure I know how to get around my university's confusing campus. Actually, it's not that difficult, but my sense of direction is about as poor as a homing pigeon with a magnet strapped to its head (see 5/27's fact), so I get lost in a walk-in closet. Wish me luck in my mission to arrive at class on-time with minimal wrong turns!

Notified readers can feel free to chip in to buy me a GPS unit to prevent future directional mishaps...

So many things to deal with lately, it's no wonder I've been putting off entries here in D-land. Mostly, I think I've just been so worn out that every time I think about sitting down and harnessing the creative influences that would really be necessary to turn out a quality entry, it just seems too much at that time...and since I'm such a perfectionist and don't like turning out complete and utter crap too often, I've been avoiding writing anything, period.

Not that today is one of those days where I'm all inspired and am going to turn out something fabulous. Oh no. I just got tired of procrastinating (wow, imagine that, you can get tired of putting things off!) and decided to write SOMETHING...that way the next time'll be a little easier (and hopefully, a little better).

Anyway, work's been busy, and in between sneaking off somewhere to read a book for a bit and avoid documentation, I've really been getting some stuff done, and showing people some of the quality work I can do...It's very nice to get some praise and recognition from your boss for a job well done. I know that's something I'm going to have to work on for when I've got people reporting to me. If I want to be the cool boss and keep people happy, good positive feedback when people do good work is a must.

Today finally dropped down out of the lower 90's, so I'm going to brave the beautiful weather and go for a run this afternoon. Since I committed myself this morning to the 3.5 miler on August 5th, it's DEFINITELY time to get my ass in gear and get in shape!!!! If I was really motivated, I'd start bringing my minidisc player in to work and recording some new running soundtracks so I could have some tunes to stride in time to....well, maybe I'm not completely tired of procrastination, as that's something that's just going to have to wait for another day....

Notified readers never put off today what they can put off tomorrow.

This week I am relaxing and kickin' it in style from the one and only William F. Bolger Center. For those of you not familiar with this auspicious location (like, everyone), it's the U.S. Postal Service's main training facility in the DC Area. So what am I doing at a USPS facility? I already told you, relaxing and kickin' it in style. :-)

This is the annual Leadership Conference where we travel 6 hours down to hotel rooms the size of walk-in-closets, spend a week trying to live a double life of staying awake during all-day lectures and partying all night in Georgetown and DC. Oh yeah, and get paid for it all. Sounds nice, doesn't it? Well it is, so if you're not jealous, you better have a nice cushy setting yourself, or something's wrong with you...

Anyway, we've got the afternoon off before the big week's kick-off this evening, so I'm just chillin' with some music and making sure none of my shirts or pants I plan to wear this week have any hugely disfiguring marks or wrinkles. My skill with an iron is legendarily bad, but I've only managed to burn myself once so far, so I'm pretty proud of myself.

Time to go...I've still got 3 hours worth of lounging to stuff into an hour and a half, so I better get crackin'!

Currently Reading

Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. It's much harder to get into than Neuromancer, which I absolutely adore, but I'm sure this one is going to be a winner, too. The premise of the main character's special "talent" is unbelievable...I'll write more about it later.

Currently Watching

Nothing. I'm trying to stay TV-free this week. Of course, I have the TV at home recording old Samurai Jack episodes and Fox's new Keen Eddie (a really funny show, if you haven't seen the pilot last week), but that'll be stuff I'll be watching when I get home.

Currently Listening To

I've been getting into audiobooks recently, since they really help turn a 20 minute drive into a blink of an eye and a 6 hour trip into something I can do without getting out of the driver's seat once. Currently in my playlist to finish are Gulliver's Travels, Bringing Out the Dead, and Paper Money. Finished The Great Santini on the way down, and sorta brushed through the intro to Tom Clancy's The Bear and the Dragon before I remembered how DENSE his books were and how hard it would be to get into them when they were in audio-form.

Currently Thinking About

Nothin' much. Just enjoying my "vacation."

Notified readers tend to be above jealousy, as long as the good things are happening to them!

My job is pretty cool, but the room I work in kicks so much ass. I think the only way I could improve it would be to bring in a La-Z-Boy recliner and a TV, and put a bathroom in the next cube so I never had to leave the room....okay, a little unrealistic, but here's the deal:

• It is a big "proposal room" (the places where they write the proposals for new business opportunities, sometimes employing as many as a hundred people on a proposal to nail down the paperwork in a few week's time). Since it's out of commission currently, this means there is only 1 other person besides me in here, and he's a fellow leadership development student. Between us, we have full reign in a room that has to be at least 600-700 square feet in size (no joke)...which means we've got white-boards, conference tables, an adjoining room, and all kinds of space to stretch out in while we're working.
• I've got a window next to my desk that is wider than I am tall, and taller than I am...um...if I were Shaquille O'Neil. Well, you get the idea, it's huge, and it lets me see the great world outside the office, which is more than what many people with the company for 10+ years have.
• There's one entrance to the room, and it requires a company badge to enter it...yes, anyone can enter, but the noise it makes when the latch is undone can be heard anywhere in the room....of which I'm as far from the door as you can get...can we say, "License to slack off without getting caught?" Just kidding, I don't slack off...everyone knows slacking off at work is lame, and unproductive, and stuff. Slacking off = bad. At least, that's what I've been told.
• Since it's just the two of us in this awful big room, I have to fill the space somehow....so I choose music. A very nice set of speakers adorns my computer (yep, I had to bring them in from home, my workplace isn't that splurge-y) and you can find my winamp playing something about 90% of the time. The fact that I can blast my music and still have time to turn it down when I hear the door latch is fantastic...that way nobody's bothered by my playing Tenacious D's Fuck Her Gently at greater-than-average volume.

Anyway, I've got the room to myself today, since Big J is out on his way to a vacation weekend, and I'm taking full advantage of it. I love being a music blasting, casual-clothes-wearing fool at work. Too bad I couldn't stay in this room for the rest of my career. It's got everything I need to get a good day's work done and still remain sane. Except for that La-Z-Boy...still waiting for my manager's approval to get one of those for my computer desk, but lately they've been mumbling something about ergonomics and safety violations when I bring that up...

Notified readers are free to move in here with me anytime they want, as long as they supply the chips and beer.