Annie Lennox In My Ear

Midway through Wednesday and I am paused for lunch, listening to Annie Lennox's "Bare" album. The sun is shining out the window to the left and the leaves are slowly turning in a cool breeze. It's a beautiful lunch and I am going to give a lot of credit for that to the restorative power of music and the creative genius and talent of Ms. Lennox.

It was a quick morning. I'd finished five different meetings by eleven, on five different subjects. I don't have any meetings scheduled this afternoon and my plan is to focus on achieving one of my goals for this week, which is to deliver a set of requirements for a phase of the project. I'd hoped to deliver them last night, but it didn't happen. Yet more requirements were levied during the meetings yesterday, so I need to rework them a bit. I've got about a two and a half hour window this afternoon, so I am hoping I am going to make some headway.

I had a flash of insight last night, while in conversation with Don while I helped him move his furniture around. I need to be learning new things - learning is an integral part of being alive for me. Lately I don't feel as if I've been learning and I think that might be a part of the unfulfilled sense I have. More of a sense that I am not living up to my own potential. So, what I need to do is start learning a little something every day, use the power of incremental learning over time to find that feeling that I am mastering something.

And having documented that little piece of insight, with Annie Lennox singing in my ear, its time to wander back to the office and have a productive afternoon.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Sliding Into The Weekend

Well, my scant entries this last week tell the tale.  Work was assorted waves of chaos through the week.  There was a project that needed to be done on a tight timeline and, unfortunately, too many managers and directors got involved and it ultimately contained four (that is right, four) complete cycles of re-work because they kept changing their minds on exactly what they wanted/needed to do.  By the time we reached the end of the process it had taken far longer than it should have and irritated every one. I usually have an even disposition, but I was getting snippy as we got to the end of the process on Thursday.  Even my patience was wearing thin.

So, it was nice that it was a short work week, with only four days.  I was off today and had a pretty good day. I slept in a bit, I had breakfast, I went to a work teleconference and send some work related email, then I slipped out for lunch.  After lunch I stopped at Old Navy and then Macy's and bought a new, middle weight winter coat. From there, I wandered through Valley Fair Shopping Center, stopped at the Apple Store, visited a few of the stores that feed my luggage fetish, then stopped and the bank, shot an hour of pool, went park walking and read "The Pink Institution", then met Tony for pizza at Mama Mia's on Hamilton. That brings us to this moment, right here, where I am sitting at home, writing this entry and uploading CD's into iTunes.

I have been working for a while on getting my entire CD collection uploaded into iTunes.  I am on the last binder, and I would estimate I have maybe eighty CD's to go.  Whew!  That was a lot of CD's, but it will be nice to have it all available to me electronically via my iPod.  In the process of loading CD's I ran across more than a few CD's that I haven't listened to, or that I thought I had lost.  Listening to them has been fun. Annie Lennox's "Songs of Mass Destruction" pops into mind.  Additionally, I bought Rachel Yamagata's Chesapeake last weekend and have had it in high rotation for the last couple of days (it played a role in keeping me from getting to snippy at work!).

I ran most of my errands today, so Saturday and Sunday, I really don't have anything I must do.  As some point in the weekend I want to see a movie (Safe House, with Denzel Washington) and at some point in the weekend I want to do a load of laundry.  I will be off to Maryland for a business trip all next week, so I am going to be able to skip the trip to the market for fresh produce and fresh meat. It is nice sliding into the weekend with nothing that must be done.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention - my novel writing went pretty well in January, with about 12,000 finished words and a lot of lessons learned.  T.R. is writing a alternative type novel (a collection of flash and poetry) that I've been impressed by, and we are doing our best to encourage each other.  Her work has is a very emotionally powerful true story, that I am already dying to read in its finished form.  It is definitely cool to be writing.  February, for me, has been nowhere near as productive, but I am hoping to make up for it this weekend, and probably while in flight.

Daily Life: A Thousand Beautiful Things

It was a beautiful day here in San Jose and in the San Francisco bay area in general. We had what I consider to be the first truly spring day, and personally, I had a very, very good day.

I slept well last night. This is just a chronicle of the day.

I watched the sunlight unfold while sitting on the patio and drinking a cup of coffee.

I talked with an old friend I had not talked to in two months or so, which was very nice. For me at least, my friends, be they the ones just down the street or the ones far away are a central part of my world, and so when they are in it, in whatever way, it just a better and brighter world.

I stopped at the bank and pulled out some cash to spend today, thankful for the circumstances in life that let me do that particular thing.

I drove over to Starflower Lane to pick up my friends Pierre and Helen while listening to Melissa Etheridge's album "Brave and Crazy".

On the way over I had fierce thoughts, fierce like a fire. I enjoyed them. I thought about distant souls and how, if I could encircle them with that fierce fire, I would.

I thought how I loved people who understood simplicity. That is a rare gift if our world of complexities, but there move among us very simple people, and that is a very good thing.

Timmy (Pierre and Helen's alien offspring dog) was twitching up a storm when I got there. I may have contributed because I stood on the porch, rang the door bell, scratched on the door, and called their home phone while making moaning zombie like sounds. LOL - Timmy was purely ecstatic.

Pierre and I discussed the relationship between our hobbies and time. Time is a precious commodity. Spending it well, on the things we love, with the people we love, is an important aspect of life.

We waited for a table at the Cup and Saucer, standing in the morning sun. Definitely one of the thousand beautiful things Annie Lennox sings of.

On one of the tables outside there was a english bulldog with a bright pink collar. She seemed quite content to sit and watch people walk by.

I had Copenhagen Pancakes (Swedish pancakes stuffed with berries and cream cheese) and biscuits and gravy and coffee and orange juice.

There was a beautiful woman at the edge of my field of vision who seemed to have come to breakfast in a pair of pajames with the number 66 on them.

We swung back to their house to pick up a hat (planning a day in the sun). Pierre walked between the car and the hedge and got tangled in the bushes. Helen commented that she was usually the one who got tangled in bushes. I was...smiling.

Timmy, being twitchy, was secured in his leather gear to protect himself from himself while we were out. He looks like a little furry Hannibal Lector in his leather gear.

We drove up to the Harvest Festival at the Pleasanton Fairgrounds. The first thing that caught my eye was a t-shirt for a small child that read "Pooh is my homeboy".

I had my first cold festival beer of the year. (That means I paid seven bucks for a beer - it was cold, it was good, but it was also a seven dollar Bud Lite.)

We bought some odds and ends of popcorn and sauces and marinades.

We had lunch at the Blue Agave Club in Pleasanton - the food was excellent. The waiter owned exactly the same ring as the one I always were. (A set of concentric Celtic spirals.) I had the enjococado (a chicken in a creamy tomato guarillo chile sauce), a recipe that has been in the family that owns the restaurant for 100 years (at least according to the menu). It was excellent. I highly recommend it. I had a glass of ice tea and black beans and rice.

We wandered through Pleasanton for a while and then headed back home. On 680 there was a motorcycle crash. Several motorcyclists, CHP officers, and the tow truck were standing around. Traffic was creeping for a good thirty minutes or so. We were in traffic behind a National Guard Humvee and National Guard Truck.

We finally made it back to San Jose and stopped at Coldstone Creamery for ice cream. I had the Hunka Chunka Burning Fudge Sundae, with no almonds. Almonds were stalking me through the day. Breakfast (the Copenhagen pancakes) was covered with slivered almonds. Lunch (the enjococado chicken) was covered with diced almonds. The sundae normally comes with almonds, but I declined them.

I drove home listening to Annie Lennox. From there, I have been lazing, watching a little TV, playing with Google, and watching the sun go down. All it all, it has been a very good day. My plan for the remainder of the night is a quiet night of reading and idling.

Daily Life: Heading to SF

Well, my plan today is to go up to SF for lunch with my friends Pierre and Helen. Every now and then we like to get together and go to Chinatown for Dim Sum. Today is that day!

The weather is beautiful, it is crisp and cool and bathed in blue skies and sunlight, so it should be a nice day up in the city. I am sure a few tens of thousands of other people are waking up and thinking the same thing - so it might be a bit of a crowd. Fortunately, as an addicted people watcher, I enjoy the crowds, so I am looking forward to the people watching as well.

Breakfast was a simple omelet, coffee and grapefruit juice while listening to Annie Lennox's "Bare" and now Chris Isaak's greatest hits. I like the way this particular day has started to unfold.

I have the new Sony H50 camera, so I am going to take it for a test spin in San Francisco today. I'll see if I can post a few pictures from the iPhone while I am up there. I hope everyone out there is having a day as beautiful as this, regardless of where you are.

Sushi To Go

Just got home from a quiet-but-busy day. Stopped on the way home at Sushi Totoro, so I am now sitting here with a bowl of miso soup, California rolls and Philadelphia rolls. We have a cold front rolling in with the promise of showers over the weekend so I am looking forward to a nice quiet weekend spent - hanging out and just enjoying the quiet things in life. I have a couple of new books to read, I have a couple of loads of laundry to do, and I have a collection of movies from which I may take my choice. This weekend I have planned to have no plans - just take things as they come.

I spent most of the work day troubleshooting a problem that cropped up earlier in the week and they (meaning the developers) thought they had found the root cause - except - it turned out to be not the root cause. LOL - not only not the root cause, but at the end of the day I am pretty convinced it had nothing to do with nothing. (I did find the root cause after a couple of hours of methodical testing). I always like when that happens. Even though as a manager now my role is no longer purely technical it is nice when I put my technical skills to work and out perform other people. That is the part of me that is inherently competitive - it is good to be good.

I am almost finished reading Jack Higgin's "The Killing Ground", a Sean Dillon novel. It is decent, a well plotted if formulaic thriller that I latched onto when I was visiting my folks. Next up (novel wise) is "A Painted House" by John Grisham, which I also pinched from the folks. I tend to like John Grisham novels and my step-father Bill recommended this one very highly.

My mother was in and out of the hospital again, this time with a bleeding ulcer. She is now back at home. After she was released from the hospital they spent a couple of hours in a furniture store looking a new chairs (my sister and I offered to buy them new chairs for Christmas). My mom say's that they tried about twenty different chairs - but still have not decided on what to get. They both have features that they want in a chair and they could not find a chair that met exactly what they wanted so my sister is going to take them up to Pierre, SD in the next couple of weeks to look at another furniture store. (That is the challenge of living in rural America - many of the things we urban dwellers take for granted - i.e. multiple furniture stores - simply are not there.)

There was an amusing exchange - my mother is trying to convince my step-father to get one of the chairs that has the automatic lift - that eases them in and lifts them out of the chair. My step-father refuses, because he's "not that old yet". My mother thinks he is. And immediately after telling me that she told me "but, I am not old enough to need one yet, but Bill is". My mother is actually older than my step-father. I suspect she conveniently forgot that.

I am planning on going out with friends on Sunday morning to see the Keanu Reeve's remake of "The Day The Earth Stood Still". Like me, my friends are huge Sci Fi fans, so whether or not the remake is any good is not particularly relevant. We will see it because it is. Zen Sci-Fi. After that the plan is to go to Hawg's in Campbell for lunch (an excellent sea food restaurant). Saturday is pretty wide open, beyond our routine breakfast at the Hickory Pit, also in Campbell.

I am of half a mind to sort through my CD collection this weekend - I have a new CD bookcase (have had it for a while) and I think the rainy weather might be a perfectly good excuse to spend the day indulging in music. My mood is good tonight, so who knows what sort of things the weekend will hold. I've been meaning to set aside some time to write, but just haven't been able to get to it, and this weekend might turn out to be the perfect time for it.

So, I am slipping into this Friday evening in a good mood, with excellent sushi and miso soup, with the Christmas tree twinkling, with Annie Lennox playing (Bare), and with the heater keeping the apartment nice and warm against the encroaching storm front. And I happened to notice that Charles Bronson "The Mechanic" is on TV a little later tonight...

Morning Sky

We have had a parade of beautiful fall mornings the last couple of weeks and today was no exception. I was on the highway on the way to work this morning in the hour before the dawn. At one point in the commute I turn to the north east for about ten minutes. The sun was rising off behind Mt. Hamilton and there were high wispy clouds. The clouds were shades of soft red. The sky overhead was dark and there was a ribbon of light blue on the horizon, fading quickly into deeper blues. I reached the office and parked behind the building and then sat there listening to Annie Lennox and drinking my coffee and thinking just how damn beautiful the world is sometimes.