A Sunday Morning Narrative

Yesterday afternoon I spent about two hours doing laundry, picked up an order of honey walnut prawns and combination fried rice from Tsing Tao in Campbell, then circled home and spent a lazy afternoon watching a movie.

I was in the mood for something very good that I hadn't seen in a while, so I opted to watch "Winter's Bone" again.  One of the things about a good movie is that they can be watched over and over and each time you glean something more from them.  "Winter's Bone" is one of those movies for me.

Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes, and Garrett Dillahunt all turn in amazing performances.  When you compare Garrett's performance with his role in "Raising Hope" you come away with an awareness of an actor whose range is astounding. John Hawkes has that same ability.

After the movie wrapped up, I spend some time hooking up one of my early Christmas presents to myself, a sound bar for my television.  It was a low cost Phillips one, from Radio Shack.  Given the small size of my apartment I really couldn't justify a higher end system.  There is no sense in having a stereo that can go to 11...when 2 or 3 is actually about as high as you can set it without intruding on your neighbors.

Then, I watched an episode of "Elementary".  After it wrapped up I went to bed early, laying down about 7:30 PM with Orson Scott Card's "Ruins" and reading for about an hour before I fell asleep. I slept pretty soundly.  I woke up about 11:30 PM, briefly, then fell back asleep.  One of the things about living in an apartment is that, periodically, you wake up for no apparent reason. Every now and then you'll know the reason that woke you - some sound, some passage, some external thing.  But, usually, you don't, you simple wake up.

All in all though, I got a good night sleep.  On waking, I folded and put away my socks and underwear from yesterday, exchanged texts with my sister, and set up my iPad with iLapse to capture a time lapse sequence of sunrise. Then, a bowl of maple and brown sugar cream of wheat, a cup of black coffee, and I've settled in to watch an episode of "Fringe" as I contemplate the day.

I have a stack of work in front of me and I will tackle it at some point in the day, but most likely later in the afternoon. This morning my plan is a bit of writing (here and in a few emails) and then breakfast, perhaps a bit of wandering, and a movie. I am thinking about seeing Daniel Day-Lewis in "Lincoln", but the jury is still out on whether or not I am inclined to a serious drama today.

I do have a bit of inner work to do, mainly in consideration of my inner turmoil, so I may tackle that today, setting aside some time later in the day for meditation and contemplation. The recent changes in my personal relationships have left me...I don't know how to describe it, but with a certain degree of emptiness.  I need to contemplate that emptiness.

Blue As Ice and Desire

A few minutes past noon.  I am sitting in my spare bedroom/office, listing to Blondie sing "Maria" over the rain outside.  It is a beautiful, rainy, cool California day. I met Tony and Ty for breakfast, stopped at Radio Shack on an errand, and then came home to attend a brief coordination meeting to get my arms around what I needed to focus on for the week ahead.

Other than that though, I am not planning on doing an work today.  I am going to mainly just relax and let my brain recover.  I think I am going to head out and catch a movie this afternoon, or maybe head over to the pool hall to shoot a couple of games.  On the other hand, on a day like today, it is an almost perfect day for just hanging around the apartment and not doing anything.

Music is an amazing thing, with it's ability to transport us to another time, another place, another state of mine with a few bars.  I started out today listening to Eddie and the Cruisers (John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band) and that has landed me in a seemingly endless queue of sixties and seventies music on YouTube.  That is a dangerous place to be on a day like today.  Definitely going to hurl me into a nostalgic mood.  (Right now I am listening to Abba "The Winner Takes It All".

"The judges will decide, the likes of me abide..."

I am not sure I could define the mood I am in today. Physically I am feeling very well. Emotionally I am, mostly centered and introspective.  Work has been obsessive lately, but I know that will eventually pass. In my heart there is silence where a voice should be.  (I like that, that is a good line, I might have to set it aside and do something with it, incorporate it into a poem or a song.)

Sometimes it is strange the things our friends and our lovers bind us too. Promises extracted. Promises given. For some people, a promise is a binding thing. For years I've always spoken obliquely about my personal relationships, not because I am concealing anything but because, early on, when I told her about my blog, when she first read it, she asked me not to write about her, since she was very uncomfortable with any aspect of her personal life on the web.  I've always honored that request, and even now I am writing obliquely about her.  Are we bound by the promises made in one aspect of a relationship when that relationship changes?  I think we are, I think I am.

Well, where ever you are, who ever you are, I hope this day has found you well, content, perhaps even happy. Always remember - the judges will decide, the likes of me abide...

Poised

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A Healthy Lunch

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Ulysses - Tennyson

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield.
-Tennyson "Ulysses"

An Indifferent Lunch

I just wrapped up a rather indifferent lunch at the cafeteria near my office. I am making it a point to linger over a tall glass of water and enjoy the moment.

The day is chaotic at work, but no more chaos than expected. UAT continues at a maddening pace. The project consists of three distinct part and I've got the only part that went on time. Now (and my fingers are crossed) it looks like the whole project might get delayed due to the inability of the other two parts of the project to make it out of system test.

I'd like to see the delay as it would allow all of us to spend more time in test and more time polishing out work. I think the overall project would benefit from it. Actually, it would have benefited from a realistic setting of expectations and schedule way back in the beginning. Ah, if wishes were horses...
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Zen at Work

I put my zen training to work today. Specifically, I used the technique I learned from Thich Nhat Hanh's book.  When I was walking and found my brain running at a hundred miles an hour, I stopped, I looked around me, I breathed, and then I focused on simply walking and breathing.  It worked very well and pulled me down a couple of notches a couple of times.

I am two days into the UAT on my portion of the project (this would be the UAT that I pulled out of my butt on four days notice) and things are moving rapidly forward, with good feedback from the users and most importantly, no major findings yet.  There have been a couple of minor configuration issues that we'll take a look into as we go along, but other that the very long days, things have been going well.

I am settled in for an hour or so of relaxation and then I am going to curl up and spend a little time reading.  One advantage of the high work load is it keeps my mind off the tangles of my personal life. I will of course work my way through them too, but for now, they are pushed aside. That ability to focus on the immediate and the external has stood me well over the years.

So, let me leave you with a snippet of the song running through my brain tonight...

It's one I've mentioned before, from John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band (on Eddie and the Cruisers):

Tender Years

When the moon hung soft and low
Catching stardust in the light
You held me closer and closer
There was magic in the night.

A sweet love song, a melody
That I still can recall
Two young hearts filled with dreams
To walk away with it all.

Whoa, whoa tender years
Won't you wash away my tears
How I wish you were near
Please don't go, tender years.

A summer love, a beach romance
Sought her kisses in the sand
Two young hearts filled with fire
Lost in never-neverland.

 Whoa, whoa tender years
Won't you wash away my tears
How I wish you were near
Please don't go, tender years.

Whoa, whoa tender years
Won't you wash away my tears
How I wish you were near
Please don't go, tender years.

Whoa, whoa tender years
Won't you wash away my tears
How I wish you were near
Please don't go, tender years.

Deep and Peaceful

Thirteen hours of work today. Hosted a pair of UAT kick-off meetings, bounced through a couple of technical meetings, coordinated some test case construction, and then came home to spend most of the evening reading and responding to 109 email.  What a day.  Tomorrow however looks relatively sane.

I am planning to go to bed early tonight, spend a little bit of time writing, and fall asleep.  I wish I had more exciting things to tell you about - but work seems to be the order of the day for the immediate future. The project I am working on has three functional parts - and now two of them are delayed.  The only part of the project that is still moving forward is mine - but there is now a very good chance that we are going to slip the whole project again (which is actually a good thing, as it will give my team more time to polish their applications and systems). We should find out in the next couple of days I hope.

So, here is hoping that the dreams tonight are good and the sleep is deep and peaceful.

Struggling Into The Morning

I'm struggling into the morning today. I slept well enough, though I woke up a little early then I had intended to, but it seems to be going well. Black coffee and oatmeal, sunrise and "Haven" on the DVR.  I am estimating that I have four to six hours worth of work to do today, maybe more - I really have two things that I want to accomplish. 

First, I have to prepare the PowerPoint presentation for Monday's meeting, which I anticipate is going to take two or three hours, then another two or three hours working on the actual test materials. I've got the whole test cycle broken down in stages, so I am going to try and roll it out, one block at a time, which is less them optimal, but the whole project is less then optimal.

I am going to try and move easily and smoothly through the day. A simple breakfast, then, maybe a movie, or maybe just come straight home and work. I have to do a couple of loads of laundry at some point during the day, so I may do them here at the apartment complex, and I may do them at the laundromat. It will depend on whether or not I have an urge to get out of the apartment later in the day. 

I definitely want to head over and get a pizza at Patxi's today, in part because I am pretty sure it's going to be a hectic and busy week, with more than it's fair share of stress moments.  I am going to try and keep focused and move easily through it, but I am not sure I am going to be able to. I think I am going to have to use all of my stress management skills to make it.  Actually, sitting here thinking about it, the week should not be too bad - it's going to be the first couple of days that are very difficult, but once I make it through them, I should be all right.  I will have to keep telling myself that as the week starts.

On Saturday, I Ramble

It was an even 60 hours by the time I logged out of work Friday, which was a mostly unproductive and frustrating day. I made it a point to take most of today off just to give myself a chance to recover. I was mostly successful. 

Here is what the day looked like - I got up about seven this morning, after a long night sleep.  Breakfast with Tony and Ty at the Hickory Pit, then I zipped home for an hour long teleconference. When the teleconference wrapped up I dashed out and met the guys at AMC 14, where we saw "Skyfall", the new James Bond movie.  It was...excellent.  After we came out of the movie I made the comment that it has that one thing that all good Bond movies have to have - that ability to thrill you.  An excellent addition to the Bond canon.

From there, we had lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings.  Then, I came home and just relaxed - I did some work related email off the Blackberry, but mostly I watched "Carnage" on the DVR (based on the play "God of Carnage"). It was a strange and amusing movie, a good choice for easing through the afternoon.

After it ended, I curled up and took a nap for the better part of two hours.  I had set the alarm to wake me after an hour, and it did, but I needed the extra time so I simply stayed in bed. All of the hours I worked last week caught up with me and I needed to get the batteries recharged.

I am tired, all in all. I am on the borderline of being burnt out at work, so I need to be careful and "brush back" to a degree and make sure I don't let myself get unhealthily overloaded.  Part of the process of brushing back is to remember to take time for myself, in simple ways, and give my brain a rest. I keep letting the frustrating things at work get under my skin and make me short tempered, which is a wicked little loop to get caught it.  It becomes a feedback loop of frustration and I have a tough time breaking through it.

I do give a lot of credit to the counselor that I went to several years ago for work stress, in that I am putting a lot of the techniques to use and though my stress does occasionally peak, it rarely stays at the peak.  Generally, when I go through a peak period I start laughing about it - finding the humor in it, realizing that most of the stress and unreasonableness at work has nothing to do with me.

One of the key stress triggers I run into is when I am told to one thing, start work on that thing, and then get told to either do it differently or to do something else.  This stop, start, and rework has been one of the killers on this project - wasting a tremendous amount of time. I estimated at one point that some very routine and ordinary tasks were taking up to three times as long as normal to get done because of the constant rework.

That was part of what sent me into a stress loop on Friday.  I'd been asked to create 250 test scenarios, so I got the team working on it. It was slow going, as I had predicted, and we made some progress but not as much as project management would have liked.  I provided the feedback on the progress - and after a days worth of work, was told to do it a different way. Now, the different way is faster, but it was not what I was originally told to do, and it completely skips one of the purposes of the exercise.  It was very frustrating and I expressed that frustrating. (One of the key things I learned from the counseling was not to lock it up inside.)