Randomly Streaming Thoughts

I think the end of the day officially begins when I come in the door, regardless of what time it is. Today was a fairly long day - twelve hours had elapsed before I graced my own apartment again. Most of the afternoon at work was spent in report massaging - pulling together data from three disparate reports, normalizing it, and then reassembling it in a manner that coaxed the meaning from it. Alas, there was no happy ending for the report. The happy ending was that I got to go home and I won't have to worry about scrambling to complete the report prior to the meeting tomorrow, at which point we are going to discuss the report.

It was a nice enough weekend - low key, enjoyable. I saw "Battle: Los Angeles" which was amusing for what it was. I had breakfast with friends, which was amusing for what it was. I did some wandering, I ran some errands, I did some laundry, I practiced pool, I watched a pair of Roger Corman movies, I watched some "Better Off Ted" on DVD, I finished reading "Replay" (Excellent by the way), and I am nearly finished reading "Helmet for My Pillow" by EB Sledge (one of the Marines on whose work Tom Hank's HBO series "The Pacific" was based. I did some incidental housecleaning.

Monday was a little on the hectic side - I worked virtually, since I had a series of appointments that ran through the morning - Doctor, Post-Office, and Miscellaneous. They all went fairly smoothly and I spent the afternoon working from home as well, so that by the time evening fell I was already in home and already tired. I actually took a nap for a while, then woke, then spent time with TR, then went back to sleep, then dreamed dreams I don't really recall. Then I woke up and went to work and well, we know how that ended (with me walking in the door at the start fo this entry). I am planning on writing some more about "Replay", since it was such an excellent book, but tonight my brain is still collating and normalizing data, so I figured I would let it run it's course while I did sort of a streaming thoughts thing here.

Let me check and see if there is anything else streaming through my thoughts - hmmm, not that I can see. I will take that as a sign to end this here! Goodnight.

On Being and Rambling

I came home from work tonight in the mood for a simple dinner, so opted for an egg white omelet with cheese, topped with salsa. It was pretty tasty and hit the spot I was aiming at. I often find the best meals are the simplest meals. The simplicity of a meal allows the purity of the associated tastes to come through. Though, in light of that, I am not really sure it applies to salsa, which can be a pretty complex concoction.

I moved pretty smoothly through the day today (Tuesday). Monday was a bit chaotic at the office, compounded by my having woken up so early in the morning. Last night when I got home I fixed dinner (grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches), took a long soaking bath, and then settled in to watch a couple of programs on the DVR (I caught up on "Justified" with Timothy Olyphant), and capped the evening with T.R..

Last night, I slept well, and then I made it a point to linger in bed this morning, not overly long, just long enough so my body understood that I was lingering. I slipped into the office, worked for a while, attended a cycle of meetings, took lunch, then back to massage some reports. I am working on a custom report request from my management that involves welding together some disparate data elements, so one of the first steps was to normalize the data as best I could. It was intensive and detailed work, and I've probably got a couple of more hours to go, but I should wrap it up tomorrow. Once the data is all normalized, analyzing it is far easier.

My boss is out of the office for four to eight weeks, so my anxiety level was a little high on Monday, but is settling down now - I am sure things will progress smoothly. However, that certainty didn't really help to pull the anxiety down. I could feel the stress getting to me Monday morning, so I made it a point to stop - take a walk, breathe, have a snack, and then resume working and that approach to resetting the day seemed to work fairly well. I am not carrying the full load for my absent boss, she did a good job of delegating it across her analysts, so that helps a lot too.

Tonight, I really don't have a plan and I realize I am just kind of sitting here, typing, and rambling. Sometimes good insights or commentary arises in the semi-aimless writing, but expecting that would be a little optimistic tonight. Tonight is a night of just being. Purely and simply.
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