Monday August 30, 2004

Weekly Wrap-up ( Monday Aug 23 - Sunday Aug 29)

As I type this, two soft balls of fluff relax nearby... the 40-pound marshmallow (aka the 20-pound pink Maine Coon) is sprawled tummy up on my desk. The Big Red Cat is by my elbow in "his place".

The weather has been interesting this week. It was cool and foggy until Thursday. Thursday through Saturday it was hot; it was 85 F in the kitchen (and 101 on the screenporch (with the windows open)) on Friday! The cats avoided the screenporch and hunted cooler climes... Sunday, it started to cool down again; we saw wisps of fog to the northwest in the afternoon. At least our heatwaves rarely last more than a few days.

I've been getting in to The Job by 7:30 am. I can do it and it gives me a good hour and a half before anyone else shows up; it also gives me the opportunity to head out earlier or run an errand and not feel like I've shortchanged the project.

We had dinner at one of our local Mexican restaurants on Monday night. They have great chile verde. Unfortunately, they also have a waitress with an attitude. On any given night, her English is proportional to her mood. She must have been in a pretty sour mood on Monday night. :-(

I ordered my usual dinner — a chile verde super burrito, wet, and a side of chile verde, ala carte, no rice, no beans. I got a chile verde super burrito, wet, no rice, no beans. It was good but strange... kinda ... narrow.

Cfcl was off the net for most of Tuesday. We either blew out a network hub or a card; we couldn't get in or out. Rich replaced both hub and card on Wednesday morning and got us up on the air again.

My parents flew in on Thursday night for their annual visit. I took Friday off from the Job and we hung around the house, chatted, had lunch, chatted some more... A pleasant time was had by all concerned.

On Saturday they flew to Las Vegas, then drove into Arizona to spend a few days with my aunt (my Mom's sister). They'll be back Tuesday evening and stay for a week.

This week I've been "on loan" to the user publications department at The Company. I've been writing a chapter for the User Guide for the next release. I got it put together on Monday and Tuesday, out for review on Wednesday and comments integrated on Thursday with another review sent out before end of day.

User docs are a bit different from my usual sort of thing. I can write them but they have a different tone and slant. I prefer engineering docs.

This week I finished Grime and Punishment, by Jill Churchill, read Best in Show, by Laurien Berenger, and started Murder in the Hearse Degree by Tim Cockey. I do not know how Tim Cockey maintains his level of wit and energy for these books. An example:

The rain was still falling with verve and spunk and the sort of focused intensity that not a few people on this planet could stand to learn something from.
I wish I could write like that ;-) It goes on:
The slightly tipsy mortician stood outside the town house á la wet rat. His shoes were filled with water. Rain ran unimpeded down into his eyes; no little windshield wipers to keep things clear. He rapped a snappy shave-and-a-haircut, but held off on the two bits. A few seconds later the door opened.
Murder in the Hearse Degree is the fourth murder mystery featuring Hitchcock Sewell, an undertaker in Baltimore, MD. If you're interested, start with The Hearse You Came in On.

In between and around the rest, I've had several naps, good meals, and interesting conversations with Spouse and friends, and snuggles with the cats. We did two loads of laundry and a load of dishes. My chats with my Mom and Dad were in person this week!

Onward and Upward.

Weekly Wrap-up ( Monday Aug 23 - Sunday Aug 29) ( in category Gemisch/Gallimaufry ) - posted at Mon, 30 Aug, 22:02 Pacific | «e»