This Weekend Has Moved Quickly

So far this weekend has passed quickly. I spent most of yesterday rearranging the furniture in the living room. Last year I had bought an L shaped desk, a small one, that I set up in the living room. Ultimately it didn't work. It was nice enough little task, but the functional purpose was to make it easier to write in the living room. However, at the end of the day, I found myself using the desk once or twice a month. It took up a corner of the living room but returned very little value. A few days ago I was just sitting there meditating and I decided I simply wanted the space back. Now, I have it back.

I've moved almost all of my computer stuff back into the spare room. Part of my plan for the day is hooking it all back up. It is probably an hours worth of work, maybe less. I will tackle it at some point during the day. For now, I'm just kind of settling back in. I got up early this morning and ran a few errands including breakfast in Fremont. I was disappointed in breakfast.

Oddly enough I've been craving sausage for the last couple of days, sausage fried with onions. Not sure where I can get that, or even if there is a restaurant that serves it, I may, ultimately, have to make my own. That may be my plan for dinner but I reserve the right to change my mind at any given moment. Especially when it comes to dinner.

On Friday I went out and saw the new Mark Wahlberg film, "Sole Survivor". I would love to tell you it was great but I would be lying. It is a poignant story. Mark Wahlberg and Ben Foster turn in yeoman performances but in the end Peter Berg, the director, cannot pull it off. The film feels disjointed. There are scenes that drag on too long. There are scenes that have no real place in the movie but seem to come out of the cliché war movie directors handbook. Then, there are a few scenes, but are simply stupid. Oddly enough, I wouldn't discourage people from seeing the movie if they want to. There is a great story in there is just buried under a lot of crap.

Well, I love the feel of sitting here in my newly rearranged living room, so I am going to wrap this entry up, take a long hot shower, then check Google to see if there is someplace in the vicinity that I can get sausage and onions for lunch. Maybe a pub or something.

Simple and Outward Facing

I thought today was an interesting day and as I sit here near the end of it I am not really sure what made it more interesting than any other day.  Still, it was interesting.  I woke in the still hours before dawn and lingered in bed to watch the sunrise/  A good call with TR set the day in the right mood. 

A shower, then breakfast, then off to see the new Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington movie "2 Guns".  It was very entertaining in a bit chaotic, plot-wise. I'd recommend it as a popcorn movie on the strength of the two lead actors. 

From there I stopped and got the car washed, then came home and watch an episode of Dexter with Tony.  (Tony is in pay-cable exile right now).  I followed that up with a long and lingering nap. 

So, amid all that, what made the day interesting? The pure simplicity of it. 

I just called in an order for pizza and I'm watched the end of the Woody Harrelson, Pierce Brosnan and Salma Hayek movie "After the Sunset" (2004).

 I have no other plan for the evening.  There is a Sinbad marathon on SyFy, so I might watch that or I might watch something down off the DVR. I've also been promising myself an evening spent almost entirely in reading and tonight might be that evening. 

I am finishing up "Red Seas under Red Skies" by Scott Lynch, the second book in his Gentleman Bastards sequence. It has been a good read and looks to end strong.

Thoughts on Working Life

As much as I dislike working on my time off, I ended spending about five hours today working on requirements for work.  Last week, due to technical difficulties, we ended up undergoing yet another design change.  I am working with the vendors this week to, basically, alter our design approach yet again, and I've got five days to get it finished and locked down, so I spend the weekend working design and requirements and just emailed them off to the vendor.  Fun and games in flying monkey land.

Other than that, it was a pretty good day.  I had a strange morning.  I woke up thinking about the variety of things I needed to do and I wanted to do and I wondered why, sometimes, I have such a challenge getting started, getting motivated, getting engaged.  It brings me back to the whole circle of discipline and focus and execution, which is all enter related. I also spent a lot of time today thinking about T.R., my family, and all the people in my life.  I think tonight I am full of a million and one questions and no answers, so, for the rest of the night, I am going to let the questions go.

I went out with Tony today and we saw "Broken City" with Mark Wahlberg, Russell Crowe, and Catherine Zeta-Jones. It was a pretty good movie.  A lot of the reviews I read said it was a miss, so I went to it with some low expectations and was pleasantly surprised.  It is a pretty faithful film noir, faithful to the genre that is.  I suspect that, for some people, without the black and white and the mood music, they expected an action or a cop show and it really isn't either.  I'd recommend it.

With that, I am going to curl up with "The King of Thorns" and read myself to sleep.  It is my short week, so it means I will work long days - and then mercifully have Friday off.  I try not to think to much about all of the work that I have ahead of me because it puts me in a bad mood and makes me twist and turn at night.  One thing at a time.  One day at time.

An Evening with The Replacement Killers

I slipped out of the office a little early today, so I could stop at the electronics store and pick up some DVD-RW's for backing up my data. I wandered the store a bit, just looking at things and enjoying the walk, but nothing else caught my mind as either a need or a want.

At home, I made a quick tamale pie for dinner, accompanied by the remnants of yesterday's potato salad, then watched some stuff from my DVR as I slide into the evening. (Modern Family, Up All Night, and Ghost Hunters). Once the sun set and the day started to cool off, I took a long, hot, soaking bath with softened my mood from earlier in the day.

I'd slipped into a mood mid-afternoon, after dealing with a set of problems with a vendor. Two of the three issues were resolved and the third is in the pipeline to be resolved, but there really wasn't any need to have lean on the vendor the extra amount. I often struggle to understand why people and organizations simply don't honor their commitments. Layered on top of that was a personal item that I may write about later, as I am mulling it now. It also has to do with people not honoring their commitments.

My brain pulls to mind that classic proverb ' "Trusting no one, never weep when you are betrayed." It is a little dramatic, since there was no betrayal involved, but it does amply illustrate the problems of expectations. Anyway, that hot bath sure covered a lot of ground in resetting my mood.

After the bath I have been sitting here watching a classic bit of "American-Hong Kong Cinema", the movie "The Replacement Killers" with Chow Yun Fat and Mira Sorvino. If you have never seen it, it is a great little action/drama, in part since Chow Yun Fat is always amazing. I also count "The Corruptor" with him and Mark Wahlberg, as another classic action/drama movie in the same vein. If you are in the mood for a stylistic shoot-em-up, either of those two will do. Personally, I also liked the charming Mira Sorvino in "The Replacement Killers".

My plan tonight is simple, conversation, reading, sleeping. Tomorrow is Friday, my work Friday, so it will be a slow day and I am planning on spending most of the analyzing a large report, the second such analysis in this week. I would have done it today, but I ended up jumping from customer service issue to customer service issue, since they had been stacking up earlier in the week.