Thursday, October 25, 2007

At Work

I'm at work. Killing time. I can only absorb so much at a time, and I'm like the Gary Larson cartoon. I need to be excused, my brain is full. I think I'm stepping on and over and stomping on protocol at every turn. I get frowned at. I think I talk to folks that are above the level that I'm supposed to. Heck, there's only 20 or so of us here at any given time.

I'm being called back to work. sigh.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Sigh

So much for posting every day. I still have time to get into the habit before November starts. Luckily, as far as I know the blog sites I use don't have a minimum number of words to post.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Sunday's belated post

My run up the ridge on Saturday showed me that my summer of not doing anything has taken its toll on my body. So, since Sunday was a beautiful fall day I took my fairly loaded down new pack over to the county park to hike for awhile. What little hiking I did kicked my butt. I did get questions about my large pack since everyone else was carrying nothing, usually not even water. The pack did fine, as did the new shoes. I realized, yet again, that I need to change out of jeans into something else when I'm carrying the pack. Too many bulky seams right where the hip belt rides. Also, I need to wear heavy socks if I'm going to buy my hiking shoes a tad larger. Mostly, though, I felt the hike in my legs and arms, right where I should feel it.

My Dad is having more issues. Minor, relatively, but his mind is getting fuzzy. Mom is cutting his pain medication down to see if his mind comes back. He ended up having shingles, which is painful, and possibly what was causing his hip pain. So, as that is being healed with the proper medication hopefully the narcotic he's been taking for the hip can go away. Also, hopefully he won't need the hip replacement. He is too old for it, and the surgery might take him out. With the pain he was having, he was ready to take that risk, though.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Peopled Out

I went to Phreaknic last night. I didn't get a room at the hotel this year, just wasn't worth the money to me to have one. I had all intentions of going back today, but ended up enjoying my solitude too much. I did see pretty much all of the folks I had wanted to see. This year everyone seemed to get along well. At least last night. The fragile connection I have with these folks was a bit reinforced. All good. And I had sushi. One of these days I'll actually be able to eat it without peering at it perplexed for several minutes before I pick it up with trembling chopsticks.

Today I met two more neighbors. I met them the usual way - trespass on my property. This time with a dozer. Knocking down trees. Running up the ridge in my truck on their very steep access road (they might call it a driveway), I again met the other neighbor that was trespassing on my property with his 4-wheeler last spring. He knew who it might be with the dozer, and offered to investigate with said 4-wheeler. Not long after, they showed up at my door. Nice guys, apologized for coming onto my land, fuzzy about property lines and such. Truth be told, even I'm not sure where the lines are. At any rate, as an olive branch they will fix my driveway. Works for me. Seems that the new neighbor who owns the land right next to me (other side from the ones I usually talk about) has staked out his new house right on top of neighbor from upper ridge's water line. So, upper neighbor was asserting his easement.

Upper neighbor works in 'computer security'. He was definitely NOT impressed with my 'Hacker Inside' Phreaknic tshirt. Nor was he impressed when I mentioned 2600, and that I am a member. sigh. Always the one who looks like I'm pushing the edges of proper behavior. And this is after I've become so boringly straight.

On to other things... I am inspired by Madcap Mum's vow to post every day this month. It seems that October is blog month or some such. I was going to start, albeit a week late. I never did. So, I am, dare I say... vowing? Ok, vowing to post every day in November. I don't think I have the novel in me to do my usual attempt at nanowrimo (nanowrimo.org) in November, so I'll do a belated month long blog. She posted a haiku in lieu of a 'normal' post due to being tired last night, so giving myself that out if I need it I will attempt, no, I will do a month of daily postings. I'll work my way up to it this week. Since I never seem to be able to do anything every day for a month (sigh), this will be a good start to new abilities to follow through. right.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Third Day in a Row

I'm really trying to get back into the blogging habit. I so enjoy reading others folks' blogs, even when I don't know the people in real life. So, although today was a fairly normal day I'll post about it here.

Work is going ok. I gave the short Intro classes again for co-workers to critique. Total time for both slide shows is about 45 minutes. My timing is ok, but I'm still boring. I need to pep it up. One of the guys who was in Iraq for a year and is now getting back to being a trainer showed me how he does it. He doesn't explain each form in the slide show, or sometimes even say what it is. Just "This is an example of the forms in this section of the program" next... Food for thought. I'll run through it again tomorrow, once just for myself and once to torture the guys I work with again. The longer class (the rest of the 2.5 days I'll teach each fielding) is actually installing the software and explaining that. I do that all the time. I'll start concentrating on that class next week.

Housemate and I (well, I stood there and talked to him while he worked) started back working on the laundry room. I am learning to just stand there and talk, not give directions. Really, he can do it however he wants. I just usually tend to ask why he's doing something, and he thinks I'm saying he's doing something wrong. I'm just curious. And chatty. And a pain. But, progress is being made. I loaded the pile of Goodwill stuff into the truck. Tomorrow I'll hopefully actually find a drop-off place and get rid of it.

The list of things I should be getting done is longer and longer. I do things, but more sits there and looks at me, waiting. I was thinking today that ever since Mom and Dad drove down to Atlanta, where I moved after high school, with everything that had been in my old bedroom in their house and unloaded it into my apartment for me to deal with, that I've had too much stuff to drag around. It's always been a total pain. It is even more of a pain to go through it and try to get rid of large chunks of it. I just try to keep ploughing through it all. Clear flat surfaces! is my mantra. I want to leave the house with abundant clear flat surfaces when I go off on my first fielding in November. The dining room table is cleared, as is the counter of the Hoosier cabinet. The kitchen is getting clearer. Progress. Momentum. sigh.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

End of an Era?

The bees are officially gone. Dan came and got them early this morning. I just noticed it. He left me a couple of quarts of his honey. I'm sure that any honey I want will be promptly sent my way if I just let him know. I'm not talking cases of it, I only use about a quart a year or such. And so, my attempt at self-sufficient homesteading is officially over. I'm still using the soap I made a *cough* few years ago. Who knew that 3lbs of shortning and a can of Red Devil lye would make so much? At any rate, I have the knowlege if I decide to get back into any of this. I'm just on to different things now.

The housemate is talking about working on the inside of the house today when he gets off work. I will have the laundry room emptied for him to work on by the time he gets here this afternoon. I had thought first that I'd have him start on the kitchen since I'm getting impatient with not having a full sized fridge. However, I realized that I really, really don't want to have every room in the house in various stages of being remodeled. Right now the laundry room and the master bedroom and the master bath are like this. Better to actually finish a room before starting another. Heck, I may even get motivated to work on the master bedroom while he's doing the laundry room.

Mainly what I want to get accomplished before I start traveling is to not have every flat surface cluttered with STUFF like it is now. There is some room in one of the storage barns now that the bee equipment is gone. I'll move some things down there today. I'm working on clearing the great room where I tend to live. The camping gear is also getting organized. I even put some clothes into the Goodwill pile. Still baby steps, but some minor progress at least.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Resurfacing

I guess it's time to check in again. I just don't have the energy to post when I'm going through a lot of change. And, change is what it has been. The new job... started out challenging. After the first 2 weeks things calmed down. I'm still learning. It's not as easy learning new things as it once was.

Another challenge lately was the really bad headaches that started when I got the new job. Stress? The ginkgo I was taking? Turns out it was maybe the coffee? I used to get those headaches whenever I'd try to drink, or inadvertently got hold of some decaffeinated coffee. I am allergic to something left behind when things are decaffeinated. It's not just the lack of caffeine, it is an actual reaction to something. I was very sensitive to motion. The guys were ready to haul me off to the hospital or doctor or something. Then, one morning I didn't drink any of their coffee for about an hour, and when I took a couple of drinks of a cup of it later the headache hit me like a hammer. I put their coffee down and went next door to the station and got coffee there. Much less headache. Yesterday I took my own coffee in, almost no headache and no sensitivity to motion. Maybe I can start learning the stuff now, too. I don't know if it is some do-gooder trying to decaffeinate the office for their own good or what, but it's not worth the fight to find out. I'll just take my own coffee in or go next door and buy it.

My first out of town trip with the job will be the Monday after Thanksgiving. I'm headed to North Carolina to observe. The tech I will be shadowing is fun, we have a good time. It should be challenging and interesting and somewhat scary all at the same time. Speaking of scary, I look around here and think that in a month I'll start traveling and see all that I need to organize here beforehand. I ended up giving the bees to a guy in the beekeepers group. He's helped me a lot, even though he kinda made me mad this spring. One hive was a total loss, but the two packages seem to be thriving. He will move them this weekend maybe, and some of the equipment, too. That will pave the way for more stuff to leave the house to the sheds. It is a beautiful weekend, no excuse not to do this.

I also want to get out and hike, even if it is just over to the county park. I bought a new pack last night at REI. I'll take the 80L one back (they have a wonderful return policy). I got an REI woman's 70L pack. The new underquilt I got for the hammock and the down bag both go in and leave some room for other things. The suspension is much better. I had them put 35lbs in the pack in the store, and I could carry it without my back hurting. I wouldn't want to carry that much on the trail, but the pack carried it comfortably. It's not an ultra-light pack, weighs in about 4.5lbs for the pack itself. It will be a good pack to get into shape with.

Much more has gone on, but I'll just jump in and try to post more often from here.