We’re gathering at Backspace, downtown, this Friday evening. Right? Right.
C’mon, you know you wanna. How can you pass up cool company like the PortlandBloggers gang?
Author: Karel Kerezman
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Transit Trial
Lesson learned: Sometimes the #9 Powell does not become the #9 Broadway. As near as I can tell, that not-becoming takes place if it’s after dark and the bus in question sails through downtown near the top rather than the bottom of the hour.
And thanks to the MAX light rail’s after-dark schedule lately, walking became a better choice than waiting around in the cold, considering how close to the Broadway bridge the #9 ended up dropping me. But hey, I got some exercise in this evening.
Walking, that is. Get your minds outta the gutter, folks.
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I’ve got your odd job, right here.
It’s not even lunch hour and I’m already bewildered by the odd goings-on I’ve dealt with at the office so far today. Let’s see…
- Installing WinRAR on a production room PC and showing a morning show producer how to extract a multipart RAR file.
- Reinstalling CoolEdit 2000 on another production room PC, because for some reason the existing copy had forgotten that it’s licensed.
- Wrestling with a bizarre login error loop on a promotions manager’s laptop, then (for good measure) merging two iTunes music collections (and I don’t even want to know how she ended up with a divided library).
- Chasing down the source of a weird iTunes_Music directory on, of all things, the main Enco fileserver. Turns out to have been caused by the fact that one of our music directors has a computer with two optical drives (CD burner and DVD-ROM) which makes both the first “available” drive letter and the Enco server drive mapping, “F:”… and the iPod drive mounter isn’t smart enough to notice that the drive letter’s already in use.
And now, I think, it’s just about time for lu—
Nevermind. My phone just rang. Someone in cubeland can’t get on the Web…
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Wait, where’d my weekend go?
For all that I woke up a bit after 9 this morning (early, for me, on a Sunday when I’m not going in to the office) it’s amazing how quickly this day went by. Of course, the kids and I went all-out in our pursuit of fun ways to goof off. Time flies when you’re having fun, and so forth, eh?
To round out the day, I finally took my very first CoH superhero on the Protector server, one Arctic Ant, to level 30. I had the most excellent help, mind you. For a “toon” that was languishing in the early teens for months, it’s nice to have him at a level that’s actually enjoyable to play with. Heck, another couple of levels and he’ll be my top hero.
The kids and I played a nice game of Carcassonne earlier in the day. Tomorrow I’ll have to post a picture of the Unfinishable City From Hell for your amusement. (I’ll probably also have to explain why it’s unfinishable, but I don’t mind. That’s part of the fun.)
I hope your weekend was enjoyable and restful, my friends. See you at the salt mines!
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Mr. Mom
Saturday morning cartoons. Kids doing chores. Going out shopping for groceries and other household supplies. Fixing dinner. Playing games. That’s pretty much my Saturday in a nutshell, doing the whole parental routine. Luckily my kids don’t require a whole lot of parenting effort on a normal day. They can generally amuse themselves and don’t need much prodding to take care of their responsibilities.
That doesn’t mean I’m not out-on-my-feet tired, though. My exhaustion’s the fault of uncomfortable bedding and unusual surroundings preventing decent sleep, however. Whee. I miss my bed.
Tomorrow’s agenda: More goofing off. Yeah, it sucks to be me, alright.
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The Myth of the Rainy Day Project
Today was the first torrentially rainy day of autumn. It didn’t get anyone’s mood down, really, but it did seem to bring productivity to a standstill. That got me thinking. We talk about things we’ll do “on a rainy day.” But when that day comes, what do we really do? We rest. We veg. We putter.
I’d be hard-pressed to name anything I actually accomplished today. That’s not something I’m terribly proud of, mind you. I read webcomics, including a sizable chunk of the Queen of Wands archives. I played Neopets, including some good high scores at Sutek’s Tomb… for myself and one of my coworkers, no less. It wasn’t much better when I got home. We had microwaved leftovers for dinner, watched anime, played computer games and now we’re all headed for bed.
Of course tomorrow and the days immediately after will also be rainy days, technically speaking. Rain is what we get in the Pacific Northwest, and I’m quite fond of the rain for giving us so much wonderful greenery all the year ‘round. Tomorrow, however, I’ll be getting things done. Not because it’s a rainy day. Tomorrow will just be another, ordinary day.
Maybe that first big rainy day after a long stretch of sunshine is our cue from the world to slow down for a moment; it’s our time to change gears, at least for one day.
That’s certainly a more appealing notion than saying that we’re all a lazy bunch of louts who took today as an excuse to goof off, no?