“So, Karel. Where the hell have you been lately? Four days without an entry?”

Too busy to write in my journal? Guilty as charged. I don’t like to let things get so far ahead of me, but I’m not going to beat myself up about it either.

Things have ramped way, way up at work. The in-house streaming project is about halfway done, depending on how you look at it, and suddenly it’s gone from Novelty Project to The CEO Wants It Done Yesterday. In the immortal words of Sam Beckett (the quantum leaper, not that other one), “Oh boy.”

Add to that the fact that no less than twenty Compaq desktop computers are due to arrive early next week and you can see how busy the rest of December looks for everyone’s favorite little grey duck.

But wait, there’s more! The computer that manages the access key-card database died Friday (or some time earlier) so we can’t add or remove key-cards from the security system. And that’s not all! The AS/400 started complaining of ethernet hiccups Thursday morning, and as of midday Friday the diagnosis is that there’s a “bad client” on our network somewhere. Guess who gets to go around the building trying to log clients onto the AS/400 until it breaks?

And each of those four projects is supposedly my Number One Priority. Great, guys. Get me three assistants and I’ll get right on that. Or maybe that, instead. Or perhaps that. Yeah, anyway…

Early in the week I was shooting the breeze with Gary Hilliard, Market Engineer for Entercom Portland. He’d handed me an unread PC World (or somesuch) and somehow we got on the subject of digital cameras. He offered to loan me his HP PhotoSmart C618 for a week or two. (He wants it back before Christmas. Damn.) I’m getting a kick out of the little machine, though I’m not entirely happy with some of its quirks. Nevermind that the output quality isn’t always stellar, I’m glad just to have the use of the thing for a while. (See the new Gallery for the results.)

So far I’ve spent about three hours on the reconceptualized new anime music video. My current goal is to build a sort of visual poem out of a few very specific visual sequences from Akira. I suppose I’m trying to break out of the “stick to the original timeline” mentality of my previous three videos. Wish me luck. If this works, it’s going to be far and away the coolest thing I’ve done in AMV creation. If it doesn’t, the video will be nigh-unwatchable. No middle ground, folks, as there were in my previous projects.

I’ll wrap up by telling you about the coolest part of my week so far. The local grade-school chess clubs met this morning at a pastel-painted school in SE Portland to engage in a mock tournament. The kids were both invited and I wanted to go along, so Wendi dropped us off on her way to go shopping. Also in attendance were the male half of the Bourgo family (Michael and James) and one of Lilith’s “demonspawn.” Michael and I shot the breeze in between my attempts to shoot various attendees.

With my (borrowed) camera, you silly person. Sheesh. I’m not that antisocial.

Erica may have been the star of the national shindig back in the spring, but it’s Alex who shone brightest this morning. After seven rounds of play, he stood undefeated with six wins and a draw. He couldn’t quite corner his third victim… er, opponent. Such is life.

My daughter’s refusal to eat her breakfast may have played a part in her shaky performance. She complained of an inability to concentrate after her first two (victorious) matches. I’m hoping she learned an important lesson today about the correlation between nutrition and performance.

And now you know where I’ve been all this time. Tomorrow? A long, long day at the office. Wheee!