October 24, 2001 - 3:50 p.m.
I am trapped on a conference call listening to discussion about one of the data centers. It seems that his has (once again) been hit by lightening � and is now operating on generator power. Isn�t there a quote about lightening not striking twice? I guess the folks that have no real power in out data center have never heard that one.
A terribly large amount of my day, my week actually, is spent on the phone. On conference calls, in meetings and finding people for impromptu meetings. It seems that I talk about work for a living. (Actually to be technically correct I talk to and manage people that talk about work for a living, but why pick at details). For the most part I find this to be a perfectly acceptable and good way to make a living. Other days I get that wistful feeling to DO something for a living. There is that fundamental feeling of accomplishment that I seem to lack at the office. The knowledge that you had a task to do and that it is done, marked off the list, no longer an item on the to do side of the page. Perhaps that is why I always take on projects in my hobbies. A buried desire to be an essential worker, to produce things.
List, I live by my lists. My friends even joke that the scariest thing to see is Kyna making a bulleted list. What can I say, lists are a small and concise way to convey a lot of information in a small compact form. No crap, no fluff, just data. I mean really who wants to grocery shop from prose?
Crown tourney is less than two weeks away. Many of my friends are either fighting or being fought for this time. People are hard at work making a new dress or tunic, redoing something on armour, making the shield look better. Me � I seem to be the slacker of the group. No new clothing started, no refinished shield (so that Ragnarr can fight with my heraldry) has been begun. Heck, I haven�t even started in on the site tokens for the event, but in my defense I did pick out the design last night about 11pm. In a rare but wise moment � I did not begin carving at that time, but instead marked the page to come back to hopefully tonight. Weekend, maybe I will be motivated this weekend. Believe me it is not about a lack of inspiration. Anyone that has ever met Ragnarr would know that.
Conference call continues � we are now on page 2 of the issues log. Now we are talking about communications issues with the Europe team. Big shock there. Aargh, the decision is to bring this problem up on the Friday meeting. Anyone want to guess what happens when we get to the Friday meeting? Yes � someone else will suggest that this get moved to the Wednesday call. This tactic is usually good for a couple of weeks until someone gets monumentally confused and calls a special meeting to discuss the specific issues. And people wonder why I am so driven to create in my hobbies.
Today it is 83 degrees. Supposedly a record for around here. I mean really, late October and I have my windows open at home. But tomorrow this is expected to come screeching to a halt. Fall will once again try to catch up with the tree color. The coming of fall, which is all too quickly followed by winter in my opinion, is what inspired the great garage cleaning last weekend.
After leaving all the wonderful folk in Maryland last Sunday I came home and was inspired to do large amounts of laundry and clean out the garage. After much work, several hours and two episodes of failing to remember to breathe through all the dust that I kicked up (note to self, try not to breathe the dust that is created from Ragnarr using power tools to shave the handle of a rattan sword) the garage is nearly done. I am one corner of summer gardening stuff from having a clean and neat garage. The kind that you can pull a car into at night and come back out to in the morning � and not have to scrape the windows. I dream of this. I never got to this sanctified place last winter so I set it as a goal for this one. I mean really � I own a house, I deserve the luxury of parking inside. Gotta have something to balance the pain of my mortgage payment. *sigh*
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