Jim Henson, Deborah Ann Woll and Aphaereis

Okay, once again, let me start with a bit of a Non Sequitur. This song was the first song I heard this morning and it rode through the entire day with me and well into the evening. I thought I would share it with you - it's a great little song you might have heard before.

"This One Goes Out To The One I Love" by REM.

So, today moved very pleasantly. Breakfast at The Broken Yolk Cafe, then an easy day at San Diego Comic Con. I went to two panels - the first was a presentation on early Jim Henson (prior to the Muppets) with the archivist from the Jim Henson Company sharing four of his earlier works (all demonstrative of Jim Henson's particular brand of genius). Then they spoke about a collaborative work that is coming out as a graphic novel, based on an early script by Jim and his writing partner Jerry Juhl, written in the fifties and sixties. Here is a like to the work at Bleeding Cool...

A Tale of Sand

Following that panel, I went to panel called "Character Voices II" which was a panel with a half a dozen voice actors, talking about their work, and then doing a cold read of a tale about Snow White that was very funny. I will try and find a copy of it on YouTube and share it with you.

Following that, I headed across the street and donated some red blood cells via Aphaeresis. If you're not already a routine blood donor, I would encourage you to become one. It is an opportunity for you to quite literally save the life of someone you'll never meet - and that is very cool. So, by all means, donate blood.

While I was strapped to the machine, sitting there watching all the other donors, one of the cast of the HBO series "True Blood", Deborah Ann Woll, came in with her boyfriend to donate and to visit and encourage the donors. It was a very nice touch and they were a gracious couple. She chatted with donors and staff, signed autographs, and posed for pictures.

After that, once I had my free cookies and apple juice, I met Tony and Toby at Cafe Diem for lunch, then we wandered back. It was good to get off my feet, take a hot bath and just ease into the evening. The plan tomorrow is to just relax, do whatever strikes the moment, and enjoy the day. We've got two full days of pure relaxation that I am looking forward to, and then it will be back to San Jose. So, from the end of the last day of Comic Con - good night!

One Week Later - Time Flies

It was a sudden week. When I glanced at my blog I realized that it had been seven days since I wrote. There were a couple of reasons for that – I went up to Wondercon in San Francisco with friends for a three day weekend (Friday, Saturday and Sunday), and then worked pretty intensively over the last three days (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday).

My manager is currently out of the office, so I caught about a 30% workload increase. Most of it has manifested as doing my “normal” work during the day, then spending a couple of hours each evening plowing through email. My managers principle job is communication and program direction, so I’ve been lucky there – it is sufficiently different from what I do (analysis, design and support) that there really isn’t an overlap.

Last night was the first real night where I had sufficient time to do incidental things around the apartment – which turned out to mainly be scrubbing the stove top and over. I happen to like the Zen simplicity of cleaning.

Today is effectively my Friday (tomorrow is my regularly scheduled day off). I am planning on easing through the day, maybe with some additional house work, laundry, and then a matinee movie. I have to admit, I want to see “Your Highness”, the fantasy spoof. It looks like it will be amusing. I could be wrong though. That is the challenge of movies – you just never quite know what you’re getting into.

I am currently listening to a generic teleconference at work and I have it on mute. It is one of those “listen only” teleconferences that permeate the working world. The first presenter blazed through her presentation, almost as if she was speaking as fast as she possible could. It was very amusing, in an unintentional sort of way.

I guess I really don’t have anything focused to say in this particular entry, other than to mention a phrase that has been bouncing around in my brain for the last couple of days – the phrase is “provisional brilliance”. I am not really sure what it means, so I am going to keep mulling it around for a while and see what pops out.