Better Days and Blueberries

Despite the fact that I woke up this morning thinking of work it did turn out to be a better day. I approached the pressure inducing analysis that I've been working on with a "head down, tight focus" attitude and moved through most of that day simply focusing on the task at hand.

It was time consuming, but ultimately it moved smoothly. About two thirty in the afternoon I sent both the reports off for review. One was approved and I expect to see the other approved tomorrow morning.

I managed to weave in and out of a few meetings and stop by a potluck as well.

Then, the best part, at the end of the day I stopped at Holder's Country Inn for the most excellent blueberry blintzes. My plan tonight is to keep it low key - spend the evening reading and thinking, then most likely a call home to the folks, time with T.R., and an early visit with the sandman. I may even spend some time writing, if the mood strikes me.

We Love The Working World - Uh, Maybe

I am struggling to get focused today. I’ve a couple of things going on that have me a bit scattered.

First, it is Monday at work. Monday at work is always a bit of a challenge as everyone hits the deck running, communications fly back and forth, and everyone is full of energy and trying to gain some traction on their work items. This Monday was no exception. I spent most of the morning working my way through about fifty assorted email. One of the challenges there is a classic one. Not every communicator is created equal. Some folks write great email. They are clear, concise, and detailed. They are rapidly actionable. Other email are opaque, bureaucratic, jargon laden, and carefully non-committal. Unfortunately, you have to read through each one to figure out which is which. Now, at the end of the process of the original sweep through the incoming email, I ended up with about ten email that require some form of action. Two hours later of course.

Second, why people schedule meetings the first thing on a Monday is often beyond me. Most of the attendees in the meetings are dealing with item one, so they are distracted or multitasking or both. But, you end up sitting through long meetings that don’t necessarily make any sense. Of course, you never know that until you are through the meeting. Another two hours of the morning was eaten up by a pair of one hour long meetings that could have easily been summed up in ten minutes.

Third, I’ve got a small mountain of work in front of me this week, so I am struggling with where to start.

The end result, the morning is gone, I worked, but I didn’t accomplish anything. Ah, don’t you love the working world?

A Violent, Graphic, and Strange Dream

This morning I woke around my normal time, about five AM, maybe a little earlier. Coffee, oatmeal, a conversation with T.R. and then I decided to go back to bed and read for a while. I read a chapter in "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin, and then fell back asleep. While I was sleeping, I dreamed. Let me give you a warning, it was a strange, violent, and graphic dream. I haven't had a particularly violent dream in a long time, so it was striking.

In the dream I was walking through a parking lot with a friend of mine in a crowd of people, all coming out of a building complex. It had the feel of the end of a concert or the end of some other public event. There was the usual jostling of a large crowd and at one point I went to my right and bumped into a young Asian/Pacific Islander couple. I immediately apologized and stopped to let them go by. The young man bristled and his friends around him immediately bristled as well. There was a bit of posturing going on and I tried to stay calm and extract myself from the situation by apologizing and moving away.

Suddenly, one of the young men reached over and grabbed my testicles very hard. The move shocked me and surprised me and we wrestled about a bit. His friends were laughing and taunting. Still not wishing for a violent encounter I warned him several times, but he was laughing and playing for his friends, who had gathered around - about a dozen younger people and a half dozen older people as well. At last I resolved myself to the act of violence and when the young man who had a hold of me turned to talk to his friend, I swept his leg, took him to the ground, and broke his jaw with a solid descending punch to the hinge. It was a brutal and violent blow, intended to do exactly what it did, incapacitate him quickly. With that onset of violence my friend suddenly took off running into the night, leaving me alone.

Chaos erupted as he howled in pain, a wounded and broken animal. The older adults urged the younger ones to attack me. I moved clear of my fallen opponent so I had room to maneuver. Two of them rushed at me. Using Jiu-Jitsu moves, I tangled the two of them up, sending one crashing into a border chain at the edge of the parking lot, and capturing the other in a wrist lock, pushing it all the way through until I heard the bones of the wrist pop and grate and he went white with shock.

At about this point one of the older women pulled out a small automatic pistol, a .32, and fired a shot at me. She missed. (It's far harder to shoot someone than you might think, even at close range, if the target is moving.) I immediately closed with her, struck her ruthlessly several times, and disarmed her, capturing the pistol. As this short and violent encounter was happening, one of the older men reached under his coat and drew a Beretta 92SB. I shot him three times with the .32 and he staggered and fell. People were now screaming and running in every direction. Several of the people, men and women, were now drawing pistols, so I scooped up the pistol on the run and kept running into the parking lot, ducking and dodging and weaving among the cars. Bullets were popping into cars and through windows as I ran. I ran long enough to convince them to chase me.

I turned and ran straight back at the group following me. I caught three of them by surprise and shot them all at nearly point blank range. I reversed and sprinted off into the parking lot again. They continued to pursue, urged on by older people, but far more cautious. This enabled me to begin an orderly retreat, firing, retreating from covered position to covered position, and firing again when a target presented itself. I was very much aware that I had one magazine of ammunition and no reload, so I was trying to work my way back to where my car was and make a getaway. Unfortunately, they spread out in a crescent and began herding me toward the edge of the parking lot, which appeared to back up against a railway storage yard. I had no choice but to fall back before them.

There was a berm at the edge of the rail yard beyond which I could see the tops of Conex containers. I knew that I was going to be horribly exposed as I crossed the berm, but I was running out of options. I reached the last row of cars and figured this was the end of it all. I waited until they started to advance, shot one, who fell screaming, and then turned and sprinted over the berm, expecting to feel the bullets tearing into me at any given moment. I reached the top of the berm and dove over, rolling, spinning and turning.

There were a dozen people yelling, howling, and running from the parking lot after me, firing pistols. I went to shoot and realized I was out of ammunition, the action of the Beretta locked back and open. I turned and ran for the Conex containers, which were about fifty yards away and separated from me by a single rail line, rising up on another, smaller berm. As I desperately ran for the cover of the containers, my friend, who had abandoned me at the beginning of the dream, suddenly rose up from the ditch behind the rail line, waving me forward. I sprinted toward him as I heard the harsh buzz of bullets flying past me.

I sprinted over the rail line and discovered, to my surprise, a long row of crouching Civil War soldiers, in three ranks, rifles in hand. An officer, bearing a saber, suddenly stood up and commanded his men to fire. In ranks, they rose up and let loose with a volley of black powder rifles, a deafening roar of fire, catching the charging people behind me in the open. The Civil War soldiers let off a second volley and a third volley and then, with a yell, charged over the rail line.

It was at this point in the dream that I woke up, about seven-thirty in the morning. It was a very graphic dream, full of the sights and sounds and sensations that make some dreams very real. I am not sure where the civil war soldiers came from in the dream, but I am glad they were there. The fear, the adrenaline, the sensations of the dream - being grabbed in the testicles, breaking a jaw, wrestling the gun from the woman, shooting at people and shooting people, the sheer terror of running and dodging through the cars, expecting to be hit - all of these things were very real. That sensation of running for cover and expecting to be shot at any moment was also very real and very terrifying. The tremendous sense of relief when I crossed the rail line and saw the soldiers waiting in ambush, that sense of floating, floating through the world, your heart pounding in your chest, seeing things through pure tunnel vision, your ears roaring, all of these sensations were very real.

However, I would not call the dream a nightmare. It was violent, it was graphic, it was very real and in it's own way it was terrifying, but it never had that sense of unreal helplessness that marks a nightmare. I woke from the dream, not with the residual terror, but rather with the simple thought of "wow, that was a violent, vivid and strange dream". It was vivid enough that now, eleven hours later, I recall it well.

Two Very Ordinary Pictures

Two very ordinary pictures. The first is my new lamp (a Possini Euro Lightstack from Lamps Plus) in action and the second was tonight's dinner (chicken, hot links, potato salad, and garlic bread from JC's BBQ on Saratoga Avenue in San Jose, California.

There is an art to celebrating the very ordinary things of life. They hold such beautiful simplicity inside of them. They are what they are, nothing more, nothing less. These two pictures really don't serve any purpose other than to be simply ordinary. That is my plan tonight - to be simply ordinary. And watch Ghost Hunters.

How To Slow A Day Down

One of the challenges of our very modern lives is time. We often come under pressure to think and act quickly. The tempo of our days seems elusively beyond our grasp. We react and respond. When we have those moments where we are in control of the tempo we drive forward quickly from the certain knowledge that our control of the timing of our days is only temporary. Those are the days we need to slow down.

I balance my time at work between responding to customer requests and project related work. Often any balance between the two forces is imaginary. They both push and pull simultaneously, competing complexities swirling about. Priorities shift, deadlines change, requirements creep – all of these things happen on a daily basis. Each of them has the capacity to spin the day out of control. Those are the days we need to slow down.

This is my small checklist on how to put the brakes on a careening day.

First, I recognize when I have “lost control” of the day. When whatever plan or intention I had was side-swiped as it approached the on-ramp.

Second, I acknowledge it by stopping, stepping back, and simply saying “Okay, my original plan and intention for the day has just been lost. Time to start over.”

Third, I make a physical break in the day – I will step outside to stand in the sun a bit, I will sit on a bench and admire the Japanese maples, I will listen to the calling of the sea-birds. For reasons known only to my mind, I find it so much easier to restart the day if it included this physical component.

Fourth, I will make a “perspective check” – that is, just step back, look at the day in context of the whole picture, and regain the perspective that I lost in feeling harried.

Fifth, I will cut off interrupting communications – instant messaging, the telephone, and email.

Sixth, then I will start moving slowly and methodically through the day, focusing on one thing at a time.

Usually, somewhere in this process, I find I am breathing a lot better and I’ve settled down quite a bit. Then, I will move forward through the day at the slow and steady pace. One of the things I always remind myself of is this – the urgency of other people is not my urgency. I will do a thorough and professional job based on my skills and abilities – that is what I am paid for. That is what my task assignments are. So, I take a deep breath, I slow down, and I focus on the bigger picture.

Slowing Down The Day

I had to take steps today to simply slow the day down. I was in the aftermath of yesterday and my day started out with a small piece of chaos. Like many corporations we use proximity badges and card readers to move about inside the plant, so your employee badge is not just a handy form of identification, it's a necessity if you want to go anywhere.

In the routine of getting ready for work this morning I left without my badge. I drove all the way to work (about twenty minutes or so) and was literally in line waiting to pass through the outer perimeter gate when I realized I didn't have my badge. It is enough of an inconvenience to not have your badge that it is worthwhile to go home and get it when you forget it.

So, basically, I started the day by repeating my commute - twice. Fortunately, I was running early enough that I managed to dodge most of the traffic, even on the second commute. On top of that I had the wonderful company of Florence and the Machine, whose album "Lungs" has been in high rotation in my car CD player.

Realizing that the act of forgetting my badge and having to play Ground Hog Day with the commute had the potential to side-track me, I made the decision that once I got into the office I would do everything in my power to simply slow the day down. I was pretty successful. I eased through the day, making the choices that kept things at a low key.

When the end of the day arrived I was ready to head home. I grabbed dinner at JC's on Saratoga (chicken and a salad) and then spent a simple and quiet evening with T.R.. It is still early here tonight and my plan is to ease out of the day like I eased through the day, with a quiet hour or so of reading before I fall asleep.

Introspection in August

I was thinking about writer's block today. You may have noticed that I haven't complained or commented about it in quite a while. Basically, I think I am over my extended period of writers block in general. I have returned to my old levels of productivity both here and professionally. Once again I write with a certain ease, with a certain flow, that feels comfortable and natural.

But I was thinking today that I haven't really had any extended periods of creative writing. Oh, bits and pieces fall out here and there, but I really haven't sat and written anything of length or complexity in a while. In the aftermath of my surgery almost two years ago now I went into a very reflective place. I am still more inclined to observe, to simply observe, then I am to write about those observations, or to pass through through that alchemical process that results in fiction or poetry.

I had a bit of insight today on that subject that I thought I would share here. Part of this reflective process has been a good deal of introspection. But it hasn't been structured or disciplined introspection. T.R. has this habit - periodically she will take a day and simply sit and do a self-assessment. An open eyed period of gazing at herself to try and understand the person she is, the person she has become. I don't do that. I don't take that length of time. My periods of introspection seem to be short in duration and incidental in occurrence.

It is as if I am moving down a path of introspection while, at some level, resisting the movement down that path. If introspection were a pool, I am compelled to slip into the waters of the pool, I am compelled to dive deeply into them, but then, when I find myself there, I turn and swim to the surface. As I pass through the month of August, where I am making those decisions to slow the month down, one of the things that I am going to try is to take some windows of time to simply, deeply, focus on the introspective journey. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Rat Rod at Breakfast

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Technical Dreams

A technical dream infiltrated my sleep last night. We're got a problem at work (the worst kind, intermittent) where, when a user clicks on a link that is supposed to open a Microsoft Word template in Windows 7, the template starts to open - and then blinks and closes, but the application logs that the act of creation was successful.

I am sure that it is a setting or a flag somewhere in the wrong position, but Windows 7 security has the desktop locked down pretty tightly, so we have to rely on the Windows 7 support team - and so far, that has been pretty disappointing. Last night, I dreamed that I finally figured out what flag was causing the problem and, as suspected it, was a simple problem. In the coming week, I think I am going to try and carve out a couple of hours to see how deeply I can get into this specific problem.

I had a second dream, which was also work related, but I only vaguely remember it. In that dream, I was helping a couple of co-workers from another department moving some boxes of marketing collateral. It was a very vague dream, in all I recall is they had a small red pickup with a big stack of boxes in the back. I was walking across the parking lot to get my car so I could take some of the boxes and lower the height of the stack in the back of the red truck.

Other than the two dreams, it was a nice night. I watched Torchwood: Miracle Day on the DVR when I got home, spent a little time reading the latest issue of Asimov's, and went to bed fairly early. I slept well and then lingered in bed this morning. Breakfast was a cinnamon danish with cheese, coffee, and now a tall glass of iced water, watching Reliable Sources of CNN. I am going to get together with the guys this afternoon for lunch at Red Robin and then the new "Conan" movie with Jason Mamoa.

I think I am going to have a slow and lazy morning, spend some time sorting through my book stack, maybe doing some idle rearrangement in the apartment. Whether or not I'll stick to the plan remains to be seen, but there is a plan to start the day.

The Fabric of Nearly Perfect Days

Some days hold a certain beauty, almost magical. They are, in their own way, nearly perfect days - perhaps so nearly perfect that we cannot recognize their perfection. When I see this, I see it in the ordinariness of the day. Extraordinary days are many things - but I would not characterize them as perfect or nearly perfect. Extraordinary is a sufficient description for them.

But for those other days, for days like today, they are perfectly ordinary. There in lies their beauty, wrapped deeply inside their simplicities. The sun is bright and warm. The sky is a certain shade of blue. There is a breeze, faint, soft, enough to keep you cool in the warmth of the sun. There are scents riding upon the air, the faint scents of a hundred parallel universes, all interwoven. The world feels firm under your feet. Those things you touch with your hands have a certain weight and heft - they feel exactly like they should feel, regardless of what they are. That is the fabric of the tapestry of nearly perfect days.