Somewhere Normal

Somewhere along the line my personal blog became my work venting blog. I guess that is bound to happen sometimes. With the recent decisions at work to transfer us out from underneath the evil director I’m hoping to return to some semblance of order in the work world. We seem to be moving in that direction, though we have a lot of territory to cover. For several years what I would call the project control mechanism was broken.

Each of the feudal baronies in our kingdom was once again pursuing their own goals and their own systems to attain those goals. We found that in several cases the company is at varying degrees of implementation of duplicate systems. I suspect it will take us a couple of years to get them under control.

The first step, the first challenge facing our new management is going to be to put into place a process to control the creation of technical projects. Once they have control of the faucet they can then control the flow. It’s going to be fun.

I’m getting ready for vacation at work right now. I’m trying to knock off the things that have to be done in the intervening week. I made good progress in that direction today and I expect to make a little more progress tomorrow. I should be in good condition when I come home tomorrow night. Then it’s just a question of easing into the vacation.

I am looking forward to going back to South Dakota, I’m looking forward to visiting family, I’m looking forward to seeing the old country and I’m looking forward to moving outside of the world I’ve been moving in. One of the great things about travel of any sort is that it reminds you that there’s an entire world out there that you are part of. That is a wonderful feeling.

I think I’m going to keep this entry simple tonight. I’m in a good mood, I have lots of work to do, but I’m not feeling that crushing stress that came from the unpredictability of the evil director. I’ve got a lot in front of me but like anything it can be divided and conquered with a little bit of work and a little bit of imagination.

 

I went to bed last night with the intention of reading some more of the serpent of Venice but I only managed to knock off a couple of pages. Tonight I’m hoping to do a little bit more than a couple of pages. I love a good book and I count myself a great Christopher Moore fan.

 

 

Just An Evening, Post Nap

Today was a fast day at the office. I went in early for a meeting that started at 6:30 AM. With the exception of lunch I then pretty much spent the entire day in meetings. They were long, but they were productive.

I left work about 3 o'clock, came home, and took a two-hour nap. I'm not sure if I was short sleep from last night or tired from allergies. Either way I definitely needed the nap.

Dinner was a vegetable soup, some hummus and cinnamon toast. After that I watched an episode each of Madmen and The Good Wife.

For the rest of the evening, which only be another hour or so, I'm going to curl up and read some more of Christopher Moore's The Serpent of Venice, after an attempt to call my brother in Arizona.

An Evening With The Serpent of Venice

I've reached the end of a fairly decent Saturday. I slept in, lingering into the dawn listening to the birds singing outside in the cool green morning. It was a very pleasant way to start the day.

When I finally decided to get out of bed, I ran through the shower, and then started that first morning cup of coffee. I might have watched something off the DVR early in the morning, but I forget what it was. At the usual time I headed out to meet Tony and his friend Matt for breakfast at the Hickory Pit. It was an enjoyable breakfast, a little heavy on the woes of the city of San Jose conversation, but enjoyable nonetheless.

After breakfast I stopped at Fry's Electronics and picked up a headset. I bought a Steele Series V2 gaming headset. I've been wanting to get an around the ear gaming headset for quite a while. It is light and it seems to have good quality sound and good-quality pick up on the microphone.

I also bought a pair of noise canceling headphones that were on sale. Unfortunately I'm going to have to take them back tomorrow – the right side is dead. We will see if they're willing to do a simple exchange. If they are all crackerbox staring the store and make sure I get one that works. It is possible but they've got a bad batch.

At home, in the afternoon, I caught up on the latest episode of Elementary, then settled in for a two-hour nap. As typically happens when you want to take a nap as soon as I had settled in and dozed off everybody in the world decided to text me, so it was a fitful afternoon of napping.

But, the rest of the afternoon was exceptionally lazy and enjoyable. It is from there but I slid into the evening, and then having slid into the evening, slid into bed. My plan is to round out the day reading some more of Christopher Moore's novel The Serpent of Venice.

A Four Minute Update

I have four minutes before I am going to start walking down the street to grab a quick lunch, so I thought I would fire off a quick note.  I’ve made arrangements for my June trip back to South Dakota to visit family over Fathers Day and my mother’s birthday. I’ve made hotel arrangemetns in San Diego (at the Marriott on Coronado Island) for Comic Con weekend (five days, four nights) and I am jazzed about that trip.  I have a podiatrist appointment tomorrow and I am very much looking forward to coming off the IPO boot. I finished Christopher Moore’s Sacre Bleu and learned more about painters then I ever knew before. Next up, for fiction, I am going to read “Mocking Jay” and finish up the Hunger Games trilogy. I am nearly finished with Haruki Murakami’s “The Elephant Vanishes” and when I finish there, I plan on diving deeply into IQ84. The unexpected spiritual journey of 2012 continues. I contemplate many things.

Patio Days

I spent the day cleaning and getting the patio set up for spring - then, it turned out to be one of the hottest days yet this year and I couldn't take advantage of it!  Ain't it the way it seems to go...

However, it was a very nice, relaxed, quiet day.  I spent almost the entire day just lazing around the apartment and cleaning the patio, intermixed with the DVR watching and reading.  Dinner was pizza with Tony, then home for a quiet evening with TR and finally, winding the rest of the night with a bit of DVR, then some Christopher Moore.

Yet another of those ordinary days that I love so much.

The Simplest of Things

I was wrapping up the evening here and I thought I would take a few minutes tonight and write about the simplest of things. Human contact is an amazing thing, whatever form that contact takes. T.R. has been working the last two weeks and traveling, so our contact has been limited to intermittent texts, a few email, and the occasional stolen phone call. (We're used to it, since both of us have jobs that, though different, sometimes require high focus and a high commitment of time.) When we are in these circumstances I am constantly amazed at how much I come to cherish just a simple incidental phone call, her words, her voice, her laugh, her thoughts. The simplest of things and the most astounding of things. So, if you have a moment, where ever you are, whatever you are doing - take it and call someone you love. You'll never regret it. That is my thought for the night, as I wind the evening down and get ready to slip into bed.

I finished reading Dean Koontz's "Breathless" and I have to say - though I loved Merlin, Riddle, and Puzzle - it tapered out at the end and ultimately didn't deliver for me. I followed it up however with an absolute page turner that has me laughing out loud in the middle of the night - Christopher Moore's "Bite Me: A Love Story", which is the sequel to "You Suck". I love Christopher Moore and he has never failed to pull round after round of laughter out of me - and in Bite Me - I love Chet the Vampire Cat. Chet rocks!

So, with Love, Voices and Vampire Cats, let me call it a night. Good night!

I want a monkey named Jeff

It has been a beautiful morning here.

I woke from a dream of work that I promptly forgot.

I was paged by Jessica Rabbit.

I lounged in a warm bed.

I finished Christopher Moore's "Fool" and laughed and giggled myself
awake and now have a strange desire to have a pet monkey who is French
and named Jeff, after the famous French ruler Jeff, the Queen of
Burgundy.

Now I am going to take a shower and start the day.

Sent from my iPhone

Lost Power

So, a rather chaotic day is winding down. I've had a nice dinner, I've
had a few phone calls, I just get back online to check email and maybe
chat a little - and the rain storm wins. I lose network and a few
minutes later power.

It suddenly becomes a perfect evening for reading Christopher Moore by
the hurricane lamp! The glow of the lamp, a good book, the stillness
and the sound of rain. Sometimes this world is a beautiful place...

Sent from my iPhone

Yet Another Day Of Rain

The rain that has filled the landscape and soundscape of the last several days continues to fall. It is barely sprinkling right now and there are three sounds in the apartment - that faint hiss of the light rain on the balcony cover, the ticking of the clock in the kitchen, and the faint clacking of the keyboard as I type.

Work went smoothly and quickly today, about half the day in meetings and the other half working a wide variety of customer support items. Today also marked one of the best parts of being manager - merit increases. I met with most of my staff today and will meet with the rest tomorrow to give them their raises. I am happy to say that everyone got a raise and that the raises, even at the lower end, were decent ones, even in these times.

Working in the defense and government contracting industry we are immune to some of the normal commercial pressures - we build products and provide services to demand. That is the customers agree to buy certain goods and services before we even begin to work - consequently we do mostly contract work, as opposed to commercial companies that first create the good or service and then try to sell it. We sell it before we even start work. It is not all upside though - we just move on a different cycle. In our business cycles when a contract ends (when the good or service is provided) or when there are major contracts that are delayed or cancelled, we expand and contract accordingly. In many ways this cycle is rougher than the commercial cycles in that we are more closely tied to our customers. As I wrote in the previous article about Meng Shih, we live very much under the waxing and waning of Heaven.

After work I came home and took a nap, then met my friend Tony at Frankie, Johnny, and Luigi's II in Westgate West shopping center in San Jose. I had the New York style lasagna and Tony has the baked rigatoni. We both had the minestroni and I chased dinner with a small slice of carrot cake. After dinner we drove up to Fry's Electronics in Sunnyvale and Tony picked up some printer cartridges and the soundtrack to "Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles".

Then, it was home for the evening. I listened to the rain and watched TV (I had recorded "Chuck" and "Heroes" on the DVR from last night). I web surfed for a while, just idling through the interconnected links of various blogs. Now, I am winding the evening down, trying to spark the creative flow and do a little writing. One of the things I like about online journaling is that often it serves as a good spark to get the creative thought processes rolling in another direction.

We've got an event coming up here this coming weekend that I am looking forward to - the 28th Annual Clam Chowder Cook Off at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk this coming Saturday. If the rain lets us, I am going to swing over there with my friends Pierre & Helen. The quality of the food is simply astounding to me - some of the finest clam chowders imaginable will be on display and it's a chance to just hang out at the municipal wharf and the Beach Boardwalk. I missed last year (I simply missed it, forgot all about it until I read about it the week after). I am looking forward to it and may go rain or shine, though shine will definitely be better.

I've been reading Christopher Moore's "Fool" - his satirical take on Shakespeare's "King Lear" the last couple of nights. Typical of more it is simply twisted, pointed and very funny. I consider myself a huge Christopher Moore fan - I've read all of his novels and count some of them as the funniest books I have ever read. My personal favorite is "Island of the Sequined Love Nun", followed by "The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove". If you have never read Moore the RUN, do not walk, to your local bookstore and buy everything that has his name on it. You will not be disappointed.

Tomorrow looks to be a day almost entirely devoted to meetings so I am going to try to go to sleep early tonight (and yes, I will slip in some reading as I fall asleep) and head into the office a little early so I get a chance to get some work done before I fall entirely into the rhythm of weaving in and out of meetings.