I did a meme over at the Ell Jay, so why not do a meme over here as well? You may remember my results from the first Nerd Test; apparently they’ve updated the quiz somewhat.
Author: Karel Kerezman
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Clean Today, Goof Tomorrow
I set a goal for myself this weekend: Spend a few hours cleaning my bedroom & bathroom. Let’s see how I did…
- The tan computer desk’s main surface and keyboard drawer have been decluttered and cleaned. Even the scanner, speakers and keyboard received a quick wipe-down. One can, for goodness sake, see the entire desk surface.
- The bathroom sink and counter-top are clean.
- I took the roomie’s spiffy new vacuum cleaner for a spin, and boy does my floor look good!
The other computer desk needs a quick once-over, all of the hutches and shelving need their contents thrown on the floor and rearranged and/or tossed into the trash, and then there’s the small matter of my overflowing closet… but I think I’ve done enough damage for one day. I’m taking a four-day weekend after the coming joyfully-short work week, and my goal is to spend part of next Sunday making more visible progress on turning my living quarters into somewhat less of what many parental units around the world and over the years might refer to as “a pig-sty.”
Not, mind you, that I normally live in filth. Just… clutter. Lots of clutter.
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One Of The Good Days
Most of my workdays are rather frustrating. I’m usually juggling three or four “urgent” problems from as many clients while flinging email messages hither and yon and trying to manage the ticket board and make note of system alerts from the managed services platform and, you know, try not to tear my hair out on account of any or all of the aforementioned tasks. The fact that I don’t like having to switch mental gears frequently, something I’m usually required to do all day, does not help one bit.
Thanks, most likely, to the impending holiday weekend, the pace has been nicely quiet and I’ve been engaged in an unusual activity: getting things done. I deployed new monitoring configurations to our clients’ servers. I performed cleanup on our main virtual machine system in anticipation of a demo install on Tuesday. I configured backups on a client’s server which hasn’t enjoyed reliable backups in… well, let’s call it “far too long” and leave it at that, shall we? During all of this I also reconfigured the offsite backup replication for this server, and checked a few of the anti-spam configurations.
All that, and my new laptop is almost ready for use. Today is indeed one of the better workdays I’ve enjoyed in a long time. That doesn’t stop me from looking forward to a few days off, of course…
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The Pariah of Public Transit
Once again this morning I was reminded of a fact that I can’t quite fit into my world view. I dress in clean clothes, I bathe every day, I do my best to present a pleasant (or at least neutral) demeanor, I lack disfiguring scars and tattoos and piercings, I use deodorant, I don’t take up that much space. So why is it that nobody wants to sit next to me on the bus or train?
This morning, for instance, two people in a row stopped at my bench on the MAX, crouched a bit as if they were about to sit down, then apparently thought better of it and moved on. Most of the time on the bus, if I happen to be on the last bench with a free seat inside the entire vehicle, it’ll remain unoccupied while people stand in the aisle. It’s been this way for as long as I can remember.
What gives, Portland? Why don’t you want to sit next to me? I don’t bite. Honest.
(For the record, I don’t mind having elbow room. I just feel bloody damned conspicuous as the only person on the vehicle who’s sitting alone.)
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Mostly Completed
I’m sure I missed something. Maybe I missed a couple of somethings. If I’m a bit lucky and a lot clever, though, I got our email and websites moved over to the new server without any major disasters or lost data.
Now it’s just a matter of tidying, tuning and double-checking the work. Perhaps after that I’ll be able to rest easy.
Easier, anyway.